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HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


GORDON POTEAT, A.B., Th.M. 





























HOME LETTERS 
FROM CHINA 

The Story of how a Missionary found 
and began his life work in the 
Heart of China 

BY 

GORDON POTEAT, A.B., Th.M. 

it 1 1 

Missionary of the Foreign Mission Board 
Southern Baptist Convention 

AUTHOR OF “a GREATHEART OF THE SOUTH,” ETC. 


NEW 
GEORGE H. 


YORK 

DORAN COMPANY 

: c. \°\ X 



:dS7£\ 

fPb 


COPYRIGHT, 1924, 

BY THE SUNDAY SCHOOL BOARD 
OF THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION 


GIFT 

PUBLISH Ef> 


PL C 



HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATE3 OF AMERICA 



CONTENTS 


I THE JOURNEY TO PEKING . . . 

IN CHINA—STRANGE, WEIRD, WONDER¬ 
FUL! 

SOOCHOW—THE VENICE OF THE EAST 
NANKING—CENTER OF REVOLUTIONS 
KAIFENG AND OPPORTUNITY 
PEKING—THE CAPITAL CITY 

II SOME EARLY IMPRESSIONS . . 

THE FAMOUS SUMMER PALACE 
MUSIC AND MERRIMENT IN CHINA 
NEW CHINA CROWDING OUT THE OLD 

III CHINA FROM A FOREIGN VIEW¬ 

POINT . 

DIFFICULT LANGUAGE AND CUSTOMS 
FOREIGN IDEAS AND FORCES AT WORK 
CHINA’S POLITICAL UNREST 
CHINA CATCHING UP FAST 

IV INITIATION INTO SOCIAL LIFE . 

SOCIAL JOYS OF THE CHINESE 
PROTESTING THE NEW EMPEROR 
ESTABLISHING SOCIAL TIES 
NEW YEAR CELEBRATIONS, ETC. 

V NEW CHINESE IN OLD CHINA . . 

THE TAOIST WORSHIP 

THE “RETURNED CHINESE STUDENTS” 

THE NEW AND THE OLD IN CHINA 

VI ARCHITECTURAL MONUMENTS . 

VISITING TEMPLES OF HEAVEN AND 
HELL 

CONFUCIAN AND BUDDHIST WORSHIP 
THE GREAT CHINESE WALL 


pao ns 

9 

21 

2Q 

41 

51 

62 


v 



CONTENTS 


VII SUMMERING IN CHINA . t . . . 

CHINA progressing; but whither? 
AT THE TEMPLE OF HEAVEN AGAIN 
A TRIP TO' CHEFOO 
A MISSIONARY’S DEVELOPMENT 
REST AND STUDY 

VIII KAIFENG.. 

TRAVELLING ON CHINESE TRAINS 
TAKING UP WORK AT KAIFENG 
FACING THE GREAT HARVEST 
AN AMERICAN-CHINESE GIRL 

IX CHRISTMAS IN CHINA ..... 

THE ENTRANCE OF THY WORD GIVETH 
LIGHT 

PREPARING FOR CHRISTMAS 
A CHRISTMAS PROGRAM IN CHINA 
THE POWER OF THE MOST HIGH 
NEEDED 

X A NEW YEAR AND NEW PROBLEMS 

THE CHINESE NEW YEAR 
FACING DIFFICULT PROBLEMS 

THE CHINESE FESTIVAL-CHING MING 

EXTRA PASTORAL LABORS 

XI ON WITH THE WORK . . L . . 

A REST AT CHEFOO 
RECEIVING REINFORCEMENTS 
IN THE MIDST OF THE WORK 

XII GREATNESS OF THE TASK . . . 

FINDING STILL FURTHER PROBLEMS 
THE REAL MEASURE OF THE MISSION¬ 
ARY’S TASK 
CHINA REQUIRES TIME 
BUILDING THE HOME LIFE IN CHINA 

XIII THE IMPACT OF CHRISTIANITY . 

china’s political plight 

LEARNING FROM GREAT CHRISTIANS 
A CHINESE NICODEMUS OR HOBAB ? 
GATHERING SOME OF THE FIRST FRUITS 



HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 




HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


i 

THE JOURNEY TO PEKING 

IN CHINA—STRANGE, WEIRD, WONDERFUL! 

We are very happy. Happy to be at our destina¬ 
tion. So happy to find mail from home awaiting us. 
Delighted to find that Peking is such a wonderful place 
to spend the year in. Both of us are well and strong 
and ready for work. And, as you may well imagine, 
both of us chock full of experiences and things to tell. 

Fifteen days of travel through the interior of China 
will take several letters for the telling. Books and 
books have been written about China and I have read 
a good many of them, but there is nothing like seeing 
for yourself. My letters will be like the books, unable 
to convey the impressions that the eye and ear and 
nose receive. But they may help a little. For in¬ 
stance, one usually thinks of all the Chinese as rice 
eaters, but in the dry section in which Kaifeng is 
located they use almost no rice; use bread from wheat 
instead. And if one of them travels South he may take 
his flour along with him so as not to eat rice. One 
traveler says that China is all barren, that scarcely a 
tree may be seen. That depends on the section or the 
9 


10 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


time of year, for the same green that you see on that 
side of the world you see on this. There are sections 
of China very much like the region of the Rockies, 
bare mountains and dusty plains; there are other re¬ 
gions somewhat like the green prairies of Illinois, 
though without as many grazing cattle; there are blue 
mountains, some of them wooded. Here are beautiful 
bits of scenery as well as monotonous levels and an¬ 
cient crumbling cities and villages with ugly mud walls. 
In other words, China is very big, very varied, very 
old, strange and not strange, pitiful and wonderful. 

We have seen more of China, so they tell us, than 
many who have been here longer. Shanghai, Soochow, 
Chinkiang, Yangchow, Nanking, Hsuchufu, Kaifeng, 
Chengchow, and finally Peking, stopping off for some 
time at each of these cities. We have traveled by 
train, first class, second and fourth; by launch, by 
chair, by ricksha, et pedibus. We have traveled with 
missionaries who knew the language, we have traveled 
by ourselves who knew it not. Between us we have a 
dozen or so words that make it possible to give a few 
simple directions. 

SOOCHOW—THE VENICE OF THE EAST 

Let me take you to Soochow first. It is two hours’ 
ride on a well equipped train, through some very pretty 
country, interlaced by canals, with every now and 
then a mountain in view or a high hill crowned with a 
pagoda. It is our first real glimpse of China, for you 
know Shanghai is not China. There are miles and 
miles of rice fields. In the canals everywhere you see 
the square sailed Chinese boats or the smaller sampans 


THE JOURNEY TO PEKING 


11 


sent along through the water by a single oar in the 
rear. The water buffalo, if at work, are going round 
and round at a wheel whose cogs rotate a chain of 
buckets bringing water from the canal to irrigate the 
rice fields. Sometimes three or four men are working 
a tread mill for the same purpose. Here is our station 
as the sun is beginning to set. There must be a thou¬ 
sand coolies most solicitous concerning our means of 
conveyance into the city, chairs, donkeys, rickshas, 
what not. We finally elect to walk, sending our bag¬ 
gage by two men who sling it between them on their 
bamboo pole and swing off ahead of us at a gait too 
fast to follow, singing or groaning a monotonous 
antiphonal chant. 

Soochow is the Venice of the East as far as canals 
are concerned. We crossed the moat to the city gate 
in a ferry, a flat bottom boat with a single ferryman. 
The streets are very narrow and very dirty, and one 
doesn't go very far before having to ascend one of their 
camel-back bridges over a canal. The city is very old 
and looks it. We set our expectation for all the rest 
of the Chinese cities by this one, but the cities are not 
all alike. 

From Chinkiang we took a trip up the Grand Canal 
by courtesy of the Standard Oil Company who loaned 
us their launch. We crossed the big river, the Yang 
Tse, and entered the canal on the North side and went 
along for about an hour and a half in the rain, passing 
a great many canal boats of all sorts and sizes. At 
one place, we saw where they had begun to dike the 
canal on the sides with blocks of stone, but most of 
the stone lay unused along the banks because the 


12 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


official in charge got so big a “squeeze” that the enter¬ 
prise could not be finished. 

One of the most interesting sights in Chinkiang is 
a valley between two rather steep hills which is literally 
covered, length and breadth, bottom and top, sides and 
all, with graves. We climbed the road to the top of 
one of the hills and looked down on them. Talk about 
the Valley of Dry Bones! The graves are conical in 
shape. Perhaps there were millions of them in that 
one valley. The graves of China are the greatest blot 
on the landscape. Certainly they could hardly be more 
unsightly. It is only rarely that they are marked by 
stones. Around Chinkiang, however, there are some 
very beautiful hills and the city has a foreign con¬ 
cession on the water front that has concrete sidewalks 
and modern residences. 

NANKING-CENTER OF REVOLUTIONS 

All aboard for the ten o’clock train to Nanking, the 
famous Southern capital, center of revolutions, mis¬ 
sionary work, and Government schools. And let me 
put in an aside here, which is not a side issue in this 
story, however. It is about Mr. Bostick’s brown sun 
helmet. It came to be the sign of assurance. Mr. 
Bostick you know was our conductor to the Interior 
China Mission. Perhaps we could have arrived at 
Kaifeng without him, but I am glad we did not have 
to. Mr. Bostick is a good-sized man, easily seen in a 
crowd, especially when he was topped by this big sun- 
helmet of his. When we would have to sit down and 
wait while he went off on a tour of investigation, it 
was always a great relief to see that brown helmet 


THE JOURNEY TO PEKING 


13 


coming back through the crowd of Chinese who sur¬ 
rounded us poor tongue-tied souls. I had telegraphed 
to Nanking for him to meet us and as it was sent a 
little late I feared he might not have received it, but 
sticking my head out of the window before the train 
had stopped I saw the helmet way down the platform. 
You see traveling in a country where you can’t tell 
the people where you want to go is traveling under 
difficulty. 

We took dinner with Dr. Evans who is connected 
with the Nanking Union Medical School as the repre¬ 
sentative of Southern Baptists. He has a beautiful 
home, a beautiful wife, beautiful children, and a fa¬ 
mously beautiful rose garden just now in bloom. His 
mother and sister were with them. They talked much 
about New Haven and our family, inquiring after you 
and father and the brothers and sisters. It made us 
feel quite at home to discover so many people of 
familiar days. After dinner there was another friend 
to see, Dr. Sloan, whom I knew in the Student Volun¬ 
teer Movement. He took us into his new home as the 
first guests he and his bride had entertained. 

With the Sloans we visited the Ming tombs outside 
the city, and the examination halls inside the city walls. 
Nanking is unique in regard to its long wall, about 
twenty-six miles around. It encloses hills as well as 
the city proper and great stretches of ground unoccu¬ 
pied by dwellings, much of it under cultivation. Per¬ 
haps you have seen pictures of the Ming tombs. There 
is a line of curious stone figures that border what once 
was an avenue out to the gate, two of each kind facing 
each other, elephants, horses, dogs, soldiers, and so 


14s HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 

on. They are far from beautiful, rather ludicrous, so 
huge, so solemn, so crude. Little beggar boys followed 
our carriage beseeching the most honorable foreigners 
to do a good deed. There were old men begging at 
the gate. Beggars are a common sight along the 
streets, at the gates and temples, at the railroad sta¬ 
tions where they cry along the trains, as at home the 
hawkers of fruit or sandwiches. They say the Orient 
is the reverse of the Occident and this is another in¬ 
stance. Here they ask for food, there they offer food. 
But the East is becoming the West with the coming of 
the railroads, for they do sell food at the trains here 
also (though not to me), steamed bread stuffed with 
meat or vegetables, hard boiled eggs, watermelon that 
is sometimes tasted before buying or refusing to buy, 
peanuts, the woody Chinese pears, meat balls floating 
in grease and presented in a bowl with chop-sticks. 
They have a way of handing around hot towels on the 
trains and the Chinese take great delight in mopping 
off their heads and faces—no one knows how many 
faces the same towel serves, but the Chinese are largely 
immune. They have been vaccinating for ages over 
here by stuffing the scabs of human small-pox sufferers 
in the noses of the babies; it is kill or cure. 

Another day and we start for Kaifeng. Across the 
river and we have to begin using another kind of 
money. When we left Shanghai we had to change our 
Shanghai money for some other kind—don’t ask me 
to name it. In some places Mexican dollars are good, 
in others they are no good except at a reduction; there 
must be a different kind for every province. Some of 
them have Yuan Shi Kai’s head on them, most of 


THE JOURNEY TO PEKING 


15 


them the name of some province. The dollar changes 
for a varying amount of cents, depending on the lo¬ 
cality, sometimes as many as one hundred and forty. 
In buying a railroad ticket you can’t make the change 
yourself, say eighty cents for example. You must give 
him “big money,” that is, a dollar and he returns you 
two dimes, although your dollar in a money shop brings 
eleven or twelve dimes in exchange. We have just 
begun to appreciate what the American eagle means 
on money. And moreover, sometimes an American 
dollar is worth $2.50 in Chinese money, sometimes 
$2.00 and sometimes less. The market fluctuates 
continually. 

Did you ever hear of traveling fourth class? That 
is the way we went from Hsu Chou Fu to Kaifeng. 
A big crowd came to see us onto the freight car with 
two boards knocked out of the side to let the light in. 
The seats? Your baggage or the floor. But the ticket 
was cheap; ninety cents for about 100 miles. It took 
from 12 M. to 8 P.M. to go the distance. It was pour¬ 
ing rain when we got to our night’s stop, and we 
unloaded into the mud for a tramp to the Chinese Inn, 
about two hundred yards away. Folks can do a lot of 
things when they have to. If I had been told to spend 
the night in our barn there at home, I should have 
considered it cruelty. But we went into our room, 
dirt floor, thatched roof that let the rain trickle through 
at the edges, flat shelf-like beds covered with a mat 
of bamboo, and unrolled our pugai (bedding brought 
from Shanghai for this purpose), used a handbag for 
a pillow and spent a most comfortable(?) night, all 
three of us in one room. They gave us boiling water 


16 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


and we made hot water tea from a can of condensed 
milk, and in the morning ate rice gruel from the inn 
kitchen. It was like being way back in the time of 
Christ; the Inn built around an open court, the cries 
of the men servants, the carts and barrows,—and to 
think that there was no room for him even in a place 
like that. 

We finished our journey next day. We were the 
only foreigners on the train except the Belgian con¬ 
ductor, and were the cynosure of all the other eyes. 
We wrapped up in all the clothes we had and sat on 
the top of our box with a blanket around us both 
together, as the morning was damp and there was a 
cold wind blowing. 

One Chinese gentleman stood opposite us and stared 
at us a good part of the journey. We understand that 
it was a most shocking thing for a man and woman to 
sit so close together in public. But we were blissfully 
and innocently ignorant. 

The missionaries and the boys from the school met 
us at the depot. The boys gave us a salute as we 
descended from the train. 

KAIFENG AND OPPORTUNITY 

My first letter brought us as far as Kaifeng. This 
will serve as an introduction to that city. 

The missionaries gave us a royal welcome. Indeed 
they seemed delighted at our coming. The Boys’ and 
Girls’ Schools are in adjoining compounds outside the 
city wall. The location is most suitable, about ten 
minutes’ walk from the railroad station. The buildings 
are a combination of Chinese and Western architec- 


THE JOURNEY TO PEKING 


17 


ture. Most of the Missions in China are built of gray 
brick, but these are all in red, a pleasant contrast in 
a land where gray walls or the light brown of mud 
buildings predominate. 

What of the city itself? It is a northern city, so 
its streets are much wider than those we saw en route. 
Our church property is on one of the main business 
streets. Thirty thousand people have been counted 
passing the door from morn till eve in one day. These 
streets are well paved and are kept quite clean. They 
have a sprinkling cart to keep down the dust. There 
are some stores with elaborate fronts. Many of them 
sell foreign goods, cloth, toilet articles, etc. The city 
has electric lights. In the center near our compound 
is a great tower—the Drum Tower. In one section 
there is a small lake on which an old palace fronts. 
But it is thoroughly Chinese after all. It has a great 
wall around it with almost enough room on top to drive 
a motor car. There are two pagodas, one, the Iron 
Pagoda is thirteen stories high, with many little 
Buddhas molded in the tiles that are its facing. The 
climate is very dry and furnishes beautiful weather in 
the fall and winter. The soil about the city is fine and 
sandy. On the north side the sand has banked itself 
up against the wall so that it is but a short leap to the 
ground. There is a large building in the main part of 
the city used for a theatre. There are several gov¬ 
ernment schools and the hall where they make the 
laws of the province is a large circular structure with 
a dome. A dome is a rare sight in China. The walls 
of the Chinese cities are a never ceasing wonder to 
me. The tremendous amount of labor and material 


18 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


that have gone into their building staggers the 
imagination. 

There are between forty and fifty foreigners in the 
city—missionaries of four denominations and the 
Y. M. C. A. and officials of the Post Office and 
Railroad. 

Sunday morning there were two services at the 
church, the first at nine-thirty for schoolboys, the 
second at eleven for the general congregation. I spoke 
to the schoolboys with Mr. Sallee as interpreter. Mr. 
Harris preached at the other sendee. What emotions 
flooded me as I listened to that first sermon in Chinese, 
and as I watched the faces of the people and saw the 
many come and go attracted by the sound of the 
singing. At least two thirds of the crowd stayed 
through the service. It was wonderful to hear them 
sing in Chinese the songs we love so well. The church 
certainly got upon my heart. The Chinese pastor died 
a year ago and there is no man, Chinese or foreign, in 
regular charge. The location is the best in the city, 
but the building is pitifully small. The floor is of 
brick and is very damp and cold in the winter; the 
windows are lattice work covered with oiled paper that 
must be replenished every once in a while. The 
benches are slabs of wood stuck with peg legs and have 
no backs to them. And there the gospel is preached 
where it is really “The Good News”! I think the 
greatest joy in all this work is talking to people who 
have never heard, and who, but for you, will probably 
never hear, and who seem, so many of them, just ready 
to receive the Word. Just think of being one of a 
Christian force of perhaps three hundred, native and 


THE JOURNEY TO PEKING 


19 


foreign, set for the capture of a citadel of 200,000 
souls. There is a surprising joy that comes with being 
in a place where needs and opportunities combine to 
make one’s life necessary and influential in the progress 
of the Kingdom. 

PEKING-THE CAPITAL CITY 

But now for Peking. We landed there on Wednes¬ 
day, September 29. We glimpsed the American flag 
on the way to the Y. M. C. A. as we passed through 
the legation quarter. The legations are modern build¬ 
ings, some of them very handsome. They are all 
enclosed within walls, but a good view of them is to be 
had from the city wall. The different legations are 
guarded by the soldiers of the nations represented. 
Marines guard “ours”. There are foreign shops in 
the quarter, and a number of banks, English, Japanese, 
French, American, and others. 

The Language School started on Monday. Our first 
teacher was a Chinese who came in and bowed and 
then began to spit out Chinese. As he didn’t know 
English and we didn’t know any Chinese it was not 
exactly like talking to folks from home. We met the 
same teacher the next day, and he doesn’t seem to 
progress in the English language any faster than I do 
in the Chinese. He won’t listen to me and I have to 
sit still in blissful ignorance while he SSSSSSSS and 
goes up and down on the four tones that make such 
important differences in the words which as yet seem 
all alike to me. He tries to make matters clearer by 
writing explanations on the board in Chinese char¬ 
acters—alas, not much more illuminating to me. There 


20 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


is another Chinese teacher who meets us at other 
periods and he also seems to have a real dislike con¬ 
cerning the use of English. He knows a few English 
words, but it is so much easier to “shew” and “cha” 
and gurgle and grunt than to say “v” or “th.” There 
are several missionaries who teach in the school and I 
do enjoy their Chinese very much, especially their 
explanations in English. Besides the school teachers 
we have private teachers who sit with us for two or 
three hours and go over the tones, pronounce words, 
and converse with us on such themes as “this is a 
book” and “that is a chair”. It is almost as enlighten¬ 
ing as the theological study of the doctrine of election. 
But I guess some day the words won’t all sound alike. 
It is well that the Chinese teachers are patient. But 
after all we are only two days out from port on this 
business and I hear older missionaries every now and 
then cut loose a string of words that accomplish their 
purpose apparently. If some have learned, others can 
learn, ergo. 


II 


SOME EARLY IMPRESSIONS 

THE FAMOUS SUMMER PALACE 

The foreign mail has just come and we have almost 
had a celebration over it. It seems curious to read 
things that happened a month ago in a letter just come. 

Now for an account of some of this week’s doings. 
I shall begin with yesterday—our trip to the Summer 
Palace. On Saturday we have no school. We study 
with our teachers in the morning and then take the 
afternoon for sight-seeing. The summer palace is 
about ten miles from the city, out near the western 
hills. It is where the Empress Dowager used to pass 
her summers, and now since there is a republic, it is 
unoccupied. We took one set of ricksha men to the 
northwest city gate, about half the distance, and an¬ 
other set out to the palace. It took us about two hours 
to go out, the men running at a good pace all the way. 
The fare was sixty cents each way. There are fine 
roads, lined with trees. The country through which 
we passed is picturesque and beautiful and the view 
of the mountains in the distance very fine indeed. We 
passed lotus ponds surrounded by willows with geese 
floating about on the water; graveyards with marking 
tablets rising out of the back of great turtles, the stone 
of one piece; mud huts of farmers where at one place 
21 


22 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


they were grinding grain with a stone roller which the 
women pulled around a stake above another stone; 
the finer places of the wealthy which are always en¬ 
closed within high stone walls and so we never see 
their houses unless we are invited inside. But the 
sight of sights was the palace. We could see it in the 
distance as we approached, high up on the side of a 
hill, the mountains its background. Far past the pal¬ 
ace could be seen a tall pagoda on one of the nearer 
hills of the range, and a wall running up the mountain 
which I thought at first was the Great Wall. 

The palace is surrounded by a wide wall which 
encircles the vast estate. We entered by a typical 
Chinese gate, outside of which were the beggars which 
remind one of the time of Christ. The walk led 
through a garden to the lake. A Chinese garden is 
usually made by piling up rocks in various shapes in 
a way resembling natural rock formations. A walk 
winds through these rocks which are surrounded by 
flowers and shrubbery. Across the lake was an island 
connected to the mainland by a marble bridge that 
arched gracefully over the water. Eight or ten small 
arches made up the great arch. To the west there 
were other bridges in view, over the little streams that 
feed the lake. One is the famous camel-back bridge 
—the arch a full half circle that one has to climb up 
and over. It is more beautiful than useful but it is 
surpassingly beautiful. Off to the north was the pal¬ 
ace, built from the edge of the lake way up to the brow 
of a hill. Near the lake there were low buildings with 
dark colored tile roofs, bordering a walk on the rock 
parapet that stretched itself along the shore. The 


SOME EARLY IMPRESSIONS 


23 


windows of these buildings were of various fanciful 
shapes and on the glass flowers were painted as if they 
were set in pots in the windows. This walk was 
covered—the roof supports painted with pictures—and 
led to the entrance of the palace and beyond to the 
famous stone barge of the Empress. The roofs of the 
palace buildings are of golden and blue tiles. The 
buildings rise one back of the other to the round 
pagoda whose gilded pinnacle is itself topped by a 
building of marble and porcelain tile which serves to 
set off the pagoda just below. Many scores of marble 
steps lead up to the pagoda, we counted over a hun¬ 
dred in one stairway. On either side of the main 
pagoda are smaller buildings, some circular, some 
square, some with golden porcelain tiles, some with 
blue. Porcelain figures, lions, phoenix, and what not, 
run down the sloping edges of the roofs. On one side 
there is a small pagoda made entirely of bronze with 
strange figures wrought in the windows and cornices. 
We ate our lunch up where we could look down on 
the gorgeous scene below. Truly there is beauty and 
art in the soul of the Chinese, even though their shops 
along the streets and the dirty alleys seem sometimes 
to give it the lie. 

The rest of our life this past week has concerned 
itself largely with our efforts to enter the secrets of 
the Chinese methods of communication. We have 
learned to count to one hundred slowly and that means 
SLOWLY, and if a shopkeeper tells us the price of 
something two or three times we can usually catch it. 
I have put down to my credit the achievement of ask¬ 
ing my teacher to buy me a Chinese pen, some ink, 


24 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


and paper, and he actually did so. It is a task of many 
more years than two—this getting to be at home in 
other modes of thought and speech than those we have 
been brought up on, but we will keep pegging away 
and the light will gradually be shed on our darkness. 
It is not an impossible task. There is encouragement 
in seeing others who are well on the way of attainment. 
When one becomes a missionary he gives up his own 
language in a way. Of course he will always read it 
and speak it with other missionaries, but he is to 
preach, to teach, to converse, in another tongue as he 
works; and to one who loves his own tongue, its poetry, 
the possibilities of expression in public speech, a great 
hardship lies in this change of language. But it is 
worthy of all one’s courage and most certainly is a 
test of one’s devotion. And undoubtedly as one goes 
on and comes to understand and be understood, the 
burden will be lighter. I do hope that I shall some 
day be free in my use of Chinese—that I won’t have 
to content myself in speaking Chinese like a foreigner. 

Thursday we went to a reception where we were 
privileged to meet Dr. W. A. P. Martin. He is well on 
toward ninety years old, was over three-score years 
and ten when the Boxers were doing their damage, and 
Helen and I both felt quite honored to be among the 
young missionaries who received his blessing. He told 
us that his good wishes were with us especially because 
we were going to Kaifeng, which city he had visited 
to inquire about the Jews who w T ere there. The Jews 
long ago came to Kaifeng and they once had a synagog 
there. The missionaries now have tennis courts on 
the spot where it stood. 


SOME EARLY IMPRESSIONS 


25 


We took a long walk on the east wall the other day 
and saw the astronomical observatory which the Jesuit 
missionaries planned long ago—Abram Schall was the 
man I believe who made it. There are some interest¬ 
ing instruments, sun dials, globes, and so on. Most of 
them are mounted on elaborately wrought iron dragons. 

They have “movies” in Peking, but they are not for 
the plebs—at least not regularly. The tickets cost 
$1.50 so you needn’t fear that we shall get the movie 
habit. 

MUSIC AND MERRIMENT IN CHINA 

This is Sunday and Helen and I have just been over 
to the Y. M. C. A. to practice the anthem and hymns 
for this afternoon’s service. We are both singing in 
the choir of the Foreign Church. We have no piano 
in this house now and so feel a bit denied, but there is 
one next door at our service, and on several Sunday 
nights already we have had a regular family sing, all 
the folks connected with our group joining in the use 
of Fellowship Hymns. A great many of the mission¬ 
aries have pianos and some of them have victrolas. 
Music is gradually making its way out here. I saw 
in the paper recently that a very large shipment of 
pianolas had been made for Chinese trade. 

We in America do not realize how much music con¬ 
tributes to our life, our thought, our joyous optimism. 
Just come to a land like this where real music forms 
an oasis in a desert whenever it is heard and you will 
more nearly be conscious of our debt to the makers 
of song. And so it is when you hear a Chinese con¬ 
gregation of Christians singing our hymns as they do, 


26 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


and often with real beauty, that the cold shivers run 
over you and you think of the day when the great host 
will sing and make music unto the Lord. It is no 
wonder that in our thought of Heaven we always asso¬ 
ciate choirs of angels and men with harps in their 
hands singing “HOLY, HOLY, HOLY”. A sample of 
Chinese music on the other hand is comparable as 
D-says to Shakespere’s wry-necked fife. Yester¬ 

day I went down to the bank and passed a group of 
Chinese musicians in full blast at the doorway of a 
Chinese house. They were still in operation when I 
returned, and again at two-thirty when we passed on 
our way sight-seeing, and also when we returned about 
six. They were either hired to celebrate a wedding or 
make melody for a funeral. The instruments were 
several “wry-necked fifes,” a large kettle drum that 
gave forth a sepulchral tone, and some gongs or cym¬ 
bals. The tune was the same apparently each time 
that we passed. They were nothing if not persevering. 
The tunes are doubtless by one ancient author so vary 
but little. But the Chinese are not incapable of music 
from our point of view. At the interscholastic track 
meet a week ago there was a Chinese band in full 
uniform, and they made very good music considering 
the time they have been studying it. There were at 
least thirty men in the band with regulation brass 
band instruments. 

The Chinese are described as stolid, but that does 
not mean that they lack humor. They know how to 
laugh as well as any people. We were at the bazaar 
the other evening where there was a Chinese presti¬ 
digitator at work with a crowd surrounding him. He 



SOME EARLY IMPRESSIONS 


27 


did his tricks and they threw him coppers. He would 
swallow a glass marble with the most horrible grimaces 
of pain to the delight of the crowd and then produce it 
in some unexpected quarter. He put a goldfish on the 
mat and covered it with a little teacup and when he 
lifted it up there were two little black and white mice 
where the fish had been. We were the only foreigners 
watching and he had the crowd stand aside so that we 
could get a good look and he and the crowd both 
enjoyed our astonishment as he pulled off his tricks. 

NEW CHINA CROWDING OUT THE OLD 

These are exciting times in China. Everywhere you 
look you see the old things; old walls, ancient build¬ 
ings, the raiment of ages gone by, customs that have 
been the same from time immemorial. But side by 
side you see the coming of the new. The old wall is 
being cut to let in a trolley line; the ancient buildings, 
when they have wasted away, are replaced with modern 
structures; leather shoes are taking the place of silk 
ones underneath the long robes of Chinese gentlemen; 
instead of the little skull cap being universal there are 
many heads covered with the felt hats or cloth caps 
of the West; on the street is still the barber who 
carries his implements for the shaving of head and 
face on the two ends of his pole, stopping where he 
has a customer, but in the room just off the same street 
is a Chinese barber shaving a Chinese face and the 
customer is comfortably seated in a modern barber’s 
chair. There goes a rich Mandarin in a motor car, 
his Chinese chauffeur dressed in foreign livery, he him¬ 
self leaning back on the cushions of his limousine 


28 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


dressed cap-a-pie in English clothes. It is the coming 
of the new and the passing of the old going on before 
our very eyes. It is wonderful to be a missionary in 
any country—it is very wonderful to be here. 

We had a great time last night at the American 
Student Interpreters’ Mess. They are American fel¬ 
lows connected with the American legation who are 
studying the Chinese language preparatory to work 
in the various consulates. And a fine bunch they are, 
the six of them. They live in a Chinese house, beauti¬ 
fully furnished with rich Chinese carvings, lattice work 
and decorated ceilings. They gave a Hallowe’en 
party and we were all invited. We dressed up in sheets 
and masks. One stunt they pulled was to turn out all 
the lights and then tell a story of a wreck that killed 
some folks. After the story they passed around the 
various bits of the bodies which were found in the 
wreckage—some of the stuff was so realistic that it 
was gruesome. They had a mustache, a scalp, a 
finger, an eye, a piece of nose, and so on. 

There is a fine group of young Americans here in 
Peking, in the Language School, teaching in different 
government schools, working in connection with the 
legation, the Standard Oil Company and other business 
concerns. 


Ill 


CHINA FROM A FOREIGN VIEWPOINT 

DIFFICULT LANGUAGE AND CUSTOMS 

It is Lebai, that is, Sunday. I have just been out 
for a short walk, and I have been thinking of the fact 
that one doesn’t have to live long in a place before the 
sights, sounds, occurrences, are all more or less fa¬ 
miliar, and when one thinks of a letter home he forgets 
that the folks don’t know about this or have not seen 
that. Already we feel much as if we were a part of 
the Chinese nation, even though Americans are about 
as rare in China as Chinese are in South Carolina. 
The chief obstacle to our assimilation is the language. 
Our conversation is still painfully limited. One mo¬ 
ment and I am priding myself on the fact that I under¬ 
stood a sentence which my teacher spoke very slowly, 
and the next moment I stand in mute embarrassment 
before a stream of words poured out of the mouth of 
a ricksha man. But let me give you a bit of elementary 
Chinese that will be interesting even though you never 
try it on any one else. That word above—Lebai—is 
the Chinese name for Sunday. They did not use to 
name the days of the week, but when they did begin 
after the foreigner had come they called the first day 
“lebai” which means “worship.” The second day of 
the week is “lebai i,” the third “lebai er,” the fourth 
29 


so 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


“lebai san,” and so on. Or in other words, Monday is 
the first day after worship day, Tuesday the second 
day after, etc. And thus are the days of the week 
spoken of generally by the Chinese whether Christian 
or not. (There is another expression which has come 
into use more recently.) But you could not tell it was 
Lebai, if you had taken the walk with me. The 
Chinese have no weekly rest day. And the lack is a 
terrible one. I had no conception of the worth of our 
Sunday as I now have. 

Chinese writing is most marvelous in its complexity. 
There are single characters that have as many as 
twenty different strokes in their makeup, and are 
pronounced as a single syllable. It is no wonder that 
the scholar is so revered here. It is the exceptional 
man who can write as many as six thousand char¬ 
acters, though there are perhaps forty thousand in the 
language. There are 214 radicals, and these combine 
with phonetics to make the thousands of characters. 
There must come a time when some simpler form of 
writing will be used. There are not many missionaries 
who ever learn to write the language with facility; 
they usually let their Chinese teachers act the scribe 
when occasion demands a letter to some Chinese gentle¬ 
man. Chirography is a real art. The writing is done 
with fine camel’s hair brushes. Fine examples of writ¬ 
ing are mounted on scrolls and decorate the guest 
rooms of the educated classes. 

There are some things you almost never see in China. 
One is a drunken Chinese. A heathen nation, so-called, 
but never a man staggering down the street. They do 
use wine at banquets, but sparingly. Foreign liquors 


CHINA FROM A FOREIGN VIEWPOINT 31 

are being imported now to some extent. They can be 
found even in the interior. Brandy is pronounced 
“bulandy” in Mandarin speaking districts. 

There are other things that you see constantly. For 
example: beggars and blind men. The blind carry 
small gongs or drums which they beat upon, to warn 
of their coming and to announce their trade. Their 
trade is generally fortune telling, and the instrument 
struck whether gong, drum, or metal bar, indicates 
their grade in the fortune teller guild. The Chinese 
think that they have special insight into the unseen 
because of their blindness. Many of them are musi¬ 
cians. Blind musicians are celebrated in the literature 
of the country. 

We are seeing cigarettes on all sides. They seem to 
be taking the country in the place of opium. The 
women high and low smoke them. It is no uncommon 
sight to see a Chinese lady in a carriage or ricksha 
pulling away at a cigarette. Cigarettes are very cheap 
and the coolie who makes a few cents a day can smoke 
them. There are of course more expensive grades for 
the fastidious. It is a part of more modern etiquette 
to place cigarettes before guests, whether men or 
women, where anciently tea alone was served. There 
are two ways of smoking which are distinctly Chinese. 
One is with a pipe about a foot long with a tiny brass 
bowl holding a wad of tobacco about the size of a pea, 
which is exhausted in about three puffs. The other is 
the water pipe, a very mild smoke, as the fumes are 
drawn through the water. A small amount of tobacco 
which is constantly replaced until satiety is reached is 
used as in the other pipe. A missionary friend of mine 


32 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


rebuked his coolie for wasting his meagre wage on 
tobacco. The coolie replied that it only cost him about 
ten coppers a week for his smokes. 

FOREIGN IDEAS AND FORCES AT WORK 

It has turned suddenly very cold and the wind that 
now blows assures us that the famous dust storms of 
the North country will soon make their appearance. 
So far we have had delightful weather. The Piedmont 
section of South Carolina has no better to offer. But 
when the weather becomes wintry my trips across to 
the other side of the city two nights a week to teach 
English will be harder to make. I learned the occu¬ 
pations of several of the members of my class this 
week. Three of them teach in the Higher Normal 
College under Mr. Chen, the principal, who is himself 
a member of the class. They are professors of chem¬ 
istry, botany, ethics, and psychology, respectively. I 
asked them about the books they used, but they all 
said that they did not use books,—they lectured. I 
think they have had their training in Japan. One 
other member is in the Government Board of Educa¬ 
tion. The ethics professor is only twenty-eight years 
old. He seems to be interested to know about Chris¬ 
tianity. He asked me the proper conduct when one 
attended the Lord’s Supper in a church. Teaching 
men English is often a means of touching them for 
Christ. 

Saturday night in the gym of the Y. M. C. A. was 
held the annual banquet of the American College Club 
of North China. American college men and Chinese 
returned students made up the crowd of about two 


CHINA FROM A FOREIGN VIEWPOINT 33 


hundred present. We all turned out in dinner coats 
and dress suits, and most of the Chinese appeared simi¬ 
larly attired. The toastmaster was Admiral Tsao, 
Vice-Minister of the Navy, an old Yale grad. He was 
one of the few in Chinese costume, and wore his little 
round cap with the big button on top, during the meal. 
It sounded odd to hear his clear English when he arose 
at the close of the feasting to introduce the after- 
dinner orators. The speeches were made by two 
Americans and two Chinese, in English—of course. 
Dr. Arthur Smith’s address on “How a Republic is 
Made” was the feature. There were some distin¬ 
guished men in the crowd. Dr. Reinsch, the American 
Ambassador sat at the speakers’ table. Three mem¬ 
bers of the revision committee at work on the new 
Mandarin translation of the Bible were present. There 
were Chinese government officials, members of govern¬ 
ment schools, and others. And we all yelled ourselves 
hoarse giving our college yells. 

One of the most interesting men in Peking sat at our 
table. His name is Yung Tau. He is a very rich man 
who has retired from business. At his own expense 
he has recently erected two monuments for the beauti¬ 
fication of Peking. He wanted to inscribe them with 
quotations from the Bible for the moral instruction of 
the people, but there was official objection, and so he 
used moral maxims from the Classics instead. He is 
not yet a professing Christian, but he has sent five 
hundred well-bound Bibles to officials in Peking, and 
also gave five hundred cheaper ones for distribution 
through the Y. M. C. A. He has given a large num¬ 
ber of scholarships to poor boys in the Y. M. C. A. 


34 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


School of Commerce, and last year paid the member¬ 
ship fees of a hundred young men who could not afford 
to join the Y. M. C. A. Recently he asked Mr. Ed¬ 
wards of the Y. M. C. A. to meet him an hour each 
day to teach him the Bible. He wants to give his life 
in some way of service, he is not sure how. He says 
what the Chinese need is to turn from wickedness and 
to love God. The inspiration of missionary work 
comes through knowledge of such men, rising out of 
the mass of immorality and superstition around them. 
I shall hope to tell you more about him later. 

If you had dropped in out of a stray aeroplane that 
night you might have thought you were in America 
rather than China. But out on the street the pad, pad, 
pad, of the feet of the hundreds of ricksha men down 
Hatamen Street, the little oil lamps sending danc¬ 
ing lights along the way as far as eye can see, make us 
realize that this is China after all. I hear that there 
are about ten thousand men who pull rickshas in 
Peking. It is a beast’s life; in the burning heat of 
summer and the coldest winds of winter, still they run. 
One of them pulled Helen thirteen miles on the run, 
and refused to let us change runners. I do not get 
accustomed to having my own flesh and blood pull me 
about. When we step out of the front door of the 
Y. M. C. A. where the Language School holds its 
classes, there is always a great rush of ricksha men to 
secure us for their fares. But there is one man in 
these parts who never has this experience, Mr. Gailey, 
the huge Secretary of the Y. M. C. A., a two hundred 
and fifty pounder. The runners all seem to be dozing 
in their rickshas when he comes down the steps. 


CHINA FROM A FOREIGN VIEWPOINT 35 


china’s political unrest 

Perhaps I had the idea that the really exciting days 
of China’s history were over and the work to be done 
in the nature of finishing touches only. A few months 
in Peking have driven out the last vestige of that idea. 
There has been no great outbreak of violence, but 
there is the intense feeling and the absorbing conversa¬ 
tions that tell of things of greatest moment happening 
around and about and in the land. Yesterday the 
Independent for November 22nd arrived. Its leading 
article was “The Chinese Republic Will Stand”—by 
Yuan Shi Kai. Yesterday was the last day of the 
three days celebration of the establishment of the new 
Monarchy, the Yuan dynasty in sooth. You can 
imagine how many conflicting reports of the occur¬ 
rences are heard, one expressing confidence in Yuan 
who is now styled the Da Huang Di (The Great Em¬ 
peror), another the utmost distrust. In the orient cir¬ 
cumlocution rather than frankness is the rule, so it is 
hard to get at the root of the matter. 

“I was very much surprised at the recommendation 
requesting me to ascend the throne. Heaven, which 
created the people, has ordained an Emperor for them 
and its decree is unchangeable. It is certain that only 
a man of extraordinary merits and great virtue is com¬ 
petent to ascend the throne. During a period of thirty 
years of political life, I, the Great President, have 
encountered many ups and downs, hence have achieved 
nothing important,” promulgates the president and de¬ 
clines the crown. The next day after another petition 


36 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


he graciously accepts the honor and in a few days is at 
work creating princedoms. 

A committee is now at work deciding on the details 
of the Grand Ceremony for the Ascending of the 
Throne. They are having some difficult questions to 
decide for Yuan is a new kind of Emperor. He is not 
of the royal line, but they have overcome that difficulty 
by tracing his ancestry back to Shun, who with Yao 
is one of the two earliest and more or less mythological 
rulers of China, 2000 B. C. It is rather like tracing 
back to Adam. Moreover, Yuan has been elected 
Emperor by the people. This is quite unprecedented. 
“In ancient times the Emperor was called the Son of 
Heaven, because he received his ordination from 
Heaven. At the same time it must also be remembered 
that Heaven only sees through the people and whatever 
the people indorse, Heaven will sanction.” So reads a 
circular letter from the Bureau for the Preparation of 
the Grand Ceremony. In other words, heaven has 
ordained Yuan after all, for the voice of the people is 
the voice of God. Other matters to be decided on by 
this Bureau are the resumption of imperial forms of 
worship, and imperial forms of dress. These have all 
been in discard since the inauguration of the Republic. 
Note what the Bureau has to say about these matters. 
“To worship heaven at the round altar, and to worship 
earth at the square reservoir is really one thing sepa¬ 
rated into two. It is the symbolic survival of scholastic 
tradition, although a matter of little importance. The 
worship of the sun in the morning, and the moon in 
the evening, as well as the worship of the nine heavens 
and the five seasons are, however, matters of supersti- 


CHINA FROM A FOREIGN VIEWPOINT 37 

tious belief. In this age of science any attempt to 
copy ancient practice without discretion would invite 
ridicule on us, besides offending the gods. We propose 
that the former should be sacrificed to with one animal 
at the Southern suburb and that all other forms of 
worship should be abolished.” Again, “Whether to 
resume the old customs of China or to adopt the tradi¬ 
tions of Europe is another point to be discussed. In 
ancient times the style of carriages, and the form of 
dress were designed to show the rank of the official. 
For instance, hooks, sashes and tassels were used to 
represent merits and badges were used to encourage 
virtue. These are old customs unsuitable for the pres¬ 
ent day. Besides the tendency of the world now is 
toward a general type of dress, and as we shall have 
intercourse with other countries, it will not be expedi¬ 
ent to introduce new forms of dress. It is, therefore, 
proposed that the dress suit now in use should be 
retained for audiences and banquets.” 

Verily this is a new day in China when its officials 
are concerned lest they do anything that might cause 
the Western nations to hold them up to ridicule. A 
few years of republican forms, a few years of inter¬ 
national contacts, put them into much confusion of 
mind when it is proposed to go back to the Empire. 
The leaven has begun to work itself into the lump, 
and it can’t be extracted now. 

The day of the foreign missionary has not reached 
evening yet. He is still greatly needed if his message 
is the message all the world needs. China is a long 
way from being converted. I believe it is best in the 
long run not to feature the spectacular part of mission- 


38 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


ary work for it is not the most typical. Human nature 
is much the same the world over and as in America so 
in China there are the individuals who sneer and laugh, 
those who are self-satisfied, who will not acknowledge 
sin, as well as those who seek the pearl of great price, 
or out of deep need call for help. An evangelistic cam¬ 
paign is news, but the quiet cultivation and personal 
contact that may last through years before much can be 
reported is the great work. The interest of people at 
home in foreign missionary work will count for most if 
it rests not in stories of remarkable conversions that 
stand out so brightly from their surroundings, but in 
the belief that the leaven of the gospel has power to 
work its way into the life of the nation as a whole, as 
it has worked its way into the life of other nations. 
There is here the opportunity to live for Christ the 
same kind of life that we should live in any country, 
planting the seed in the hearts of people very much 
like the people of America, the difference being largely 
in the fact that there is so much unplowed ground here. 
The differences between China and America are 
temporal and superficial, the similarities are eternal 
and fundamental. It may be necessary to accent the 
differences in order to attract the attention of Ameri¬ 
can Christians to missions, but in the similarities lie 
the deepest reasons for this work. 

CHINA CATCHING UP FAST 

We had an illustration of the fact that the differences 
between the Chinese and other races lie more in the 
dissimilarities of opportunity and environment, rather 
than in any inherent incapacity or racial inferiority, in 


CHINA FROM A FOREIGN VIEWPOINT 39 

a musical given by students who have returned from 
their studies in the West. It was managed entirely by 
the Chinese, and the program included only three 
Americans who played accompaniments. They had the 
Peking Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted this time by 
a Chinese. It is not proper to say that the concert was 
fine, considering the artists were Chinese. It was fine 
whatever race or tongue was involved. One of the 
numbers was a piano duet by two Chinese girls, neither 
of whom had been abroad to study. They played with 
real spirit and would have received an encore any¬ 
where. One of the final numbers was given by the 
Tsing Hua College Glee Club. They sang “There 
Was a Boy Sat on a Tack” and “Johnny Schmoker” 
and quite brought down the house. There was a great 
crowd out for the concert, and in the crowd faces of as 
fine intelligence as any to be found. There were some 
beautiful Chinese girls, dressed in embroidered silks, 
that would be the envy of college girls at home. Many 
of the Chinese men wore dress suits. On the walls of 
the auditorium were pennants of the different colleges 
in the United States attended by the students, as well as 
the flags of different nations in which some have 
studied. It looked just like a college auditorium in 
America decorated for a similar occasion. 

One very soon forgets the word alien and drops the 
word out of his vocabulary. When I first arrived and 
rode on trains run by Chinese engineers, tickets col¬ 
lected by Chinese, the dining car stewards Chinese, I 
found myself wondering—how can they do it? And 
then to see an auto tearing along as fast as they run 


40 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


them in America, a Chinese at the wheel, made me 
wonder the more. But this wonder is soon superseded 
by appreciation and admiration as we realize that they 
are not behind any in ability. 


IV 


INITIATION INTO SOCIAL LIFE 

SOCIAL JOYS OF THE CHINESE 

The holidays are on and the days are full of merry 
making. Last night several of us went down to the 
American Legation to sing for the soldiers. After that 
we went up to the American Board Compound for our 
class party. We played progressive games, and the 
eats! You could not have beaten them on your side 
of the pond. The cake was decorated by the Chinese 
cook with a kind of lacy frosting that would have done 
credit to a New York caterer. There was deelicious ice 
cream and coffee. O! We’re jolly good fellows—we 
missionaries of the Language School. 

Just now a good bit of time is occupied in practicing 
for “The Messiah”, which we expect to sing January 
ioth. It won’t be done in the best style but it ought 
to afford some pleasure, and the orchestra will drown 
out the discords. The musicians in the orchestra, with 
the single exception of the maitre de baton , who is a 
Hollander, are all Chinese. It almost took my breath 
away the first time they appeared for rehearsal and 
began tuning up their fiddles. 

I wish you could have seen the performance of the 
Y. M. C. A. circus. The stunts were given by the 
Chinese of the gymnasium class under the direction of 
41 


42 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


the Chinese physical director who is a w T onder. He was 
trained by Hoagland the American director who is now 
in the United States on furlough. They had prestidigi¬ 
tators, pantomimes, parallel bar work, building of pyra¬ 
mids, comedy skits, Chinese boxing and fencing which 
would have made a hit in Barnum and Bailey’s, and 
flying trapeze acrobatics, done in the roof of the build¬ 
ing without a net beneath them, so daring that it made 
us rather nervous to look at it. The director let them 
put a flagstone on his chest and beat it with a sledge 
hammer. 

There is really a gay social whirl here. I have used 
my dinner coat more in the last few months in China 
than in a whole year in America. Whenever you go out 
to dinner you are supposed to put on a stiff front. To¬ 
night we are having a dinner party here at our house 
in honor of the holidays and expect to consume pheas¬ 
ant, fruit cake and trimmings. You have heard of the 
man who said he was going to quit giving to missions 
because the missionaries ate pheasants and he could 
never afford them. They come pretty cheap out here 
where game is plentiful, and they surely are good. 

Enough for this time. I am more than ever glad that 
I am a missionary. Just think of how you come into 
touch with people of every race and clime; the Chinese 
of course, and Europeans, people from other parts of 
Asia, missionaries going to and from all parts of the 
world. Far from being the isolated person that many 
think him, a missionary is a real world citizen. It so 
often happens that the people one meets are those of 
influence, for they are usually the ones who travel. 


INITIATION INTO SOCIAL LIFE 


43 


PROTESTING THE NEW EMPEROR 

There was a letter in the Peking Gazette last Wed¬ 
nesday written by Mr. Liang Chi Chao, who has been 
called the Scholar of the Republic, to Yuan Shi Kai 
beseeching him to reconsider his decision to be 
Emperor, to break away from the evil influences which 
surround him in council, to be loyal to his oath to the 
Republic. It sounded like a speech of Patrick Henry 
and the man who wrote it had to flee to the South. The 
dull days are not on us yet. Recently some soldiers at 
Tungchow, twenty miles from Peking, raised a riot 
because they wanted their “grace pay”—a grant on 
account of the change of government. They were 
finally quieted by promises and the execution of several 
of the leaders. Reports have come from Nanking that 
several hundred Northern soldiers have mutinied— 
that about seventy of them have been executed. They 
don’t hesitate to put disturbers six feet under in this 
part of the world. But there is generally the feeling 
that there will not be any wide disturbance now because 
China fears that Japan may step in if trouble starts. 

Dr. Thwing, resident here in Peking, is the head of 
the International Reform Bureau. In the paper last 
week it was stated that one of the Christian officials 
of the government had invited the missionaries and the 
Chinese pastors to a meeting to give thanks because of 
the peaceful restoration of the monarchy. The paper 
remarked sarcastically (it is anti-monarchical) that 
“old man Thwing” did not go to the meeting. After 
the paragraph appeared in the paper, the Secretary of 
State called on Dr. Thwing to ask why he did not go to 


44 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


the meeting; he had gone to the meeting for Thanksgiv¬ 
ing for the peaceful establishment of the Republic. Dr. 
Thwing told him he couldn’t give thanks because he 
was a Republican and did not believe in Monarchy. 
Think of the Secretary of State of China calling on a 
missionary because he did not attend a prayer meeting. 

We had a great day on New Year’s. The custom in 
Peking is for all the ladies of the community to be at 
home to all the men. I believe Dr. Goodrich, of the 
Congregational Board, who is now over eighty years 
old, originated the idea. Usually several ladies are at 
home in one residence and the men call in twos and 
threes. The calling begins early in the morning. I 
stayed in bed late that morning, having watched the old 
year out the day before, and ere I was up some had 
called to wish a Happy New Year. The day gave me a 
new realization of how interesting the missionaries as 
a whole are, what an accomplished group of people. 
They don’t all wear poke bonnets, not by a long shot! 
Not only the newcomers but those who have been here 
a long time have regard for the way they dress. In the 
winter time, because fur is so cheap, you should see the 
fine fur coats the people wear. The men have their 
fur-lined garments and the women their pretty muffs 
and boas. Fox skins, leopard, squirrel, otter, sheep, 
bear, are all on the market, with occasionally a tiger 
pelt. 


ESTABLISHING SOCIAL TIES 

Monday night there was a reception to all the 
Chinese pastors and helpers of Peking given by the 
members of the Peking Missionary Association. There 


INITIATION INTO SOCIAL LIFE 


45 


was a musical program and refreshments “post 
singem”. Helen was on the program and did the family 
proud. I say family for I am having the experience of 
sharing the glory that is shed upon me by virtue of the 
fact that I am “her husband”! During the evening I 
had the opportunity to try out my Chinese on several 
who doubtless suffered inwardly to hear their mother 
tongue thus murdered. But the fact that they under¬ 
stood a little of what I said about the weather encour¬ 
ages me, when I think that two or three months ago I 
was totally dumb. 

Tuesday evening we had three Chinese young men 
to dinner. One, a Mr. Tau, was commissioner for the 
province of Chihli at the San Francisco Exposition. 
Two of them wore Chinese clothes which the more one 
sees the more becoming and artistic they appear. They 
were of grayish, green silk, figured, the fur which lined 
them appearing at the tip of their collars. 

Thursday night we went to a big Chinese feast. I 
must describe it for you as far as gastronomical dainties 
can be made sensible apart from the organs of taste. 
Let me pass by the table cloth which had evidently 
done much service judging by what had been spilled 
on it. (Table cloths are a Westernism—the Chinese 
put them on as a concession to foreigners.) First came 
nuts and watermelon and pumpkin seeds, with bits of 
orange and red fruit. Then dish after dish followed in 
quick succession. Each of us had a bowl and a small 
side dish, and spoons and chopsticks. The table was 
round, the chief dish served hot was placed in the 
middle with various cold dishes, pressed chicken, 
century eggs of green jelly-like consistency, bits of 


46 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


beef, water chestnuts, starfish, lotus seeds, bamboo 
sprouts, sea slugs, and what not around it. Together 
we put our chop sticks into the central bowl and pulled 
forth our portions. The hot dishes were the best. Hot 
fritters of different kinds, chicken, fish in several styles, 
a whole duck stewed so as to fall to pieces for the chop¬ 
sticks, several courses of soup, it would tax my memory 
to remember all we had. It is the custom for the waiter 
to bring the fish in alive and flapping before serving 
to guarantee its freshness. The feast ended with bowls 
of rice to be eaten dry. The Chinese are famous for 
their cooking, especially for the variety with which 
they can prepare the different food staples. They 
boast in Shansi one hundred different dishes out of 
flour alone. 

The servants who waited on us lined up at different 
stages on our journey as we passed out and at the door 
“mine host”, the proprietor, made us farewell salaams. 
The servants cried our departure from man to man in a 
high falsetto something like the voice of a chicken! 

Friday Dr. Arthur H. Smith lectured to us. The 
Chinese have a proverb for everything, so he says. 
Apropos of our proverb—“It takes two to make a 
quarrel” is the Chinese, “One palm of the hand makes 
no sound”! A Chinese comment on the difference of 
marriage customs, East and West, is—“You put your 
water in hot and let it get cold; we put ours in cold and 
let it get hot”. You know, of course, that in China the 
bride and groom do not see each other before the 
wedding day, the affair being arranged for them 
through their families. “To eat dumb man’s loss” is 
an expression which means to suffer without complain- 


INITIATION INTO SOCIAL LIFE 


47 


ing. A dumb man swallows a tooth but he can tell no 
one about it. “To eat bitterness” is their way of saying 
our American “get stung”! 

He spoke of the etiquette of the old style Chinese 
teacher. Their courteous speech is most interesting. 
On greeting a stranger they first inquire for his “honor¬ 
able name”. The proper response is, “My humble 

name is-”. “Where is your honorable mansion?” 

“My humble hut is on Chien Men Street!” “What is 
your exalted age?” (This is addressed to other than 
gray haired old gentlemen). “Oh! I am quite young 
yet, only fifty.” Age is a mark of great distinction in 
China. And so the conversation continues, with mutual 
protestations of unworthiness and occasional quotations 
from the Classics. The memory of these scholars is 
prodigious. The story is told of a high official who 
was exiled. On the long sea voyage the days grew 
monotonous, and the official was asked why he did not 
take to reading. He replied that he knew all the books 
by heart, and there was nothing more for him to read. 
Such a man according to their expression has a 
“stomach-full of learning”. The repository of erudi¬ 
tion is in common speech, the stomach. Another 
instance of their powers of memory. Some men were 
translating and revising the Bible and had the help of 
an old Chinese scholar. There was the old version in 
five columns, and each man made his own translation 
in five columns. When they would come together to 
confer on their work, they would ask the teacher— 
“What did the old version read at such and such a 
point?” He would shut his eyes and sway gently back 



48 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


and forth and repeat the passage for them. He kept 
the original and their five translations in his mind. 

NEW YEAR CELEBRATIONS, ETC. 

We have been to a big New Year’s bazaar. The 
Chinese New Year is reckoned by the moon and usually 
comes later than in our solar calendar. The dealers 
had their wares laid out on the ground or on small 
tables, over a large vacant lot, perhaps an acre in ex¬ 
tent. In the center there were booths for tea drinking 
and eating, accommodations for a thousand people, I 
should guess. There was no roof over the merchants, 
for there is little fear of rain in Peking at this season 
of the year, and there were no heating arrangements for 
the Chinese dress very heavily in winter. They have 
little heating of their homes, in fact. A great crowd 
of people passed around and back again looking at the 
goods offered for sale. All the merchants were small 
dealers, displaying about as much merchandise as could 
be put in a space ten feet square. There were curios, 
brass and metal ornaments and utensils, porcelain, 
toys, scrolls painted and lettered, et cetera. Here is 
the usual dialog in bargaining for a purchase. I see a 
likely looking lacquered tray which Helen thinks will be 
of service with her tea set, so I ask the merchant— 
“How much is that?” “Two dollars and a half”, is his 
reply. Showing surprise and incredulity I say, “That 
is much too dear”. Says he, “Then you make an offer”. 
Say I, “I’ll give you eighty cents”. Says he—“I won’t 
sell it for that price, it’s below cost”. Say I—“Then I 
won’t buy it”, and walk away. If he still views me in 
the light of a possible customer he will at once call after 


INITIATION INTO SOCIAL LIFE 


49 


me—“Came back. Now make your last offer for it”. 
“Absolutely my last word; Til give you a dollar”. No 
he won’t take it, and off I go again. I am climbing into 
a ricksha to leave the grounds when up runs a little boy 
who cries—“Do you want to buy that tray? How 
much will you give for it?” “A dollar”, I again reply. 
He tells me to wait and runs off, soon to reappear with 
the tray. His father had sent him after me. 

The Chinese are great bargainers, they are at it all 
the time. It rather tries my patience more than once in 
a very great while. Instead of having a fixed fare, so 
many cents a mile, the ricksha man says he will pull 
you for eight coppers, for example, and you offer him 
four, and finally compromise on six. Some of the more 
modern shops have signs now declaring that they are 
one price establishments and do not “chiang chia”, that 
is, haggle the price. The shops have many queer signs. 
One is—“Children and old folks will not be deceived 
here”. The implication, of course, is that others can 
take care of themselves. 

I said that I would tell you something about Chinese 
names. There are only about one hundred surnames, 
and these are all contained in the Book of Names. 
They are really clan names. Some are more common 
than others, for example, Wang (JF*) which means 
Prince. It is even more common than Smith or Brown 
in the States. The surname is spoken first, the given 
name of one or two words follows. Chang Djing Ching 
is Mr. Chang, not Mr. Ching. When a child is born, he 
is given a name by his parents by which he is known in 
the home. When old enough to go to school, his teacher 
gives him another name. When he comes of man’s 


50 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


estate, he is given still another name by which he is 
officially known. The giving of this last name is quite 
an important occasion and is accompanied by feasts 
and visits of congratulation. On the visiting cards of 
Chinese gentlemen, both of these last mentioned names 
usually appear. Translated some of them sound quite 
odd to our ears. For instance, “Constant Grandson”, 
“Honest Thoroughfare”, “Establisher of Virtue”, and 
so on. 


V 


NEW CHINESE IN OLD CHINA 

THE TAOIST WORSHIP 

There were two parties and a trip to a temple outside 
of the city this week, but finest of all were the two let¬ 
ters from you. Saturday was one of the two or three 
big days of the year at the White Cloud Temple which 
is west of the city wall. We went out to see the crowds 
and the Taoist worship. There was a great multitude 
coming and going on the way. What struck me was the 
presence among those who walked or rode little don¬ 
keys, of the fine carriages of the wealthy. And out at 
the temple there were women in fine silks and jewels 
who prostrated themselves before the idols and burned 
their joss sticks along with the poor and ignorant. 
There must be too much of the feeling of religion in the 
hearts of men for them to give up entirely their 
religious practices, even though such practices are con¬ 
demned as superstition by many educated Chinese to¬ 
day. 

The road to the temple was very dusty with the wear 
of many feet, and we found it easier to get out of our 
rickshas and walk when we were outside of the city 
gate. As we neared the temple the crowd thickened, 
reminding one of a country circus crowd. Along the 
sides of the road were hundreds of beggars, holding up 
51 


52 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


stumps of legs or arms for pity, or calling out from 
where they sat in their blindness, or hobbling after 
passersby with outstretched hands, or as one man, 
almost naked despite the cold of the day, making hor¬ 
rible noises in the hope of getting money. Unspeakable 
in dirt and filth and misery. One now realizes how 
Jesus with his great heart of love, could not help work¬ 
ing miracles when he passed through similar crowds 
and saw just such harrowing spectacles of wrecked 
humanity. And when you see the bitter weeping and 
fearful superstitions that are evident in any Chinese 
funeral, you don’t wonder that Jesus raised Lazarus 
from the dead, and said of the little daughter—“She is 
not dead, but sleepeth”. Our American Christianity is 
the heir of ages that through the word of the gospel and 
the power of Christ have swept out fear and much of 
the most terrible sickness, and it too easily forgets the 
pit from which it was digged in confidently asserting 
that Jesus could not have done this or that. Jesus 
said—“Go and tell John the things which ye hear and 
see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk 
and the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the 
poor have good tidings preached unto them”. Would 
that we could tell of such miracles as these they re¬ 
ported to John. Can we preach the gospel really and 
fully unless we seek to relieve the suffering of those 
around us? Iam sure that it is according to the divine 
wisdom of God that the power to work physical miracle 
by a word has not been granted to us. In the day of 
the wealth and power and knowledge of his people; he 
has chosen to lay the burden of this need on the hearts 
of all his followers and has not granted special power 


NEW CHINESE IN OLD CHINA 


53 


for one or two to work miracles. Through hospitals, 
through asylums, through industrial training centers 
and homes and missions for the poor and neglected, and 
better still through preventive measures correcting 
conditions, we all may work together the works of God, 
and these are really the greater works that he promised 
to do through us. But we have hardly yet begun to 
work with him these greater works here in China. 

We went into the gate of the temple followed by a 
mob of boys begging for cash. The temple was in 
rather better repair than others I have seen. It is a 
sort of monastery. The Taoist priests (pronounced 
Towist) wear their hair long and coiled on the top of 
their heads. We passed over a marble bridge on either 
side of which as one leaned over the balcony were seen 
suspended pots with a bell hung in them at which the 
people tossed coppers. I suppose if the bell was struck 
it was a sign of good luck. Under the bridge and be¬ 
hind these bells sat men in rigid meditation. We 
learned later that they do not sit thus for long days as 
we had supposed, but only on temple days when the 
people come. The worship in the temple itself was on 
this wise. A worshiper would ascend the steps of one 
of the compartments where there was an idol and would 
purchase a bunch of joss sticks from one of the priests 
who stood by the altar. The priest lighted these sticks 
from a fire before the idol and handed them to the wor¬ 
shiper who waved them up and down once or twice 
and then after placing these sticks in a receptacle 
before the idol he kowtowed (literally knocked his 
head) on a mat laid on the floor in front of the altar. 
We noticed that most of the worshipers were women 


54 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 

—it is ever so. The different idols presumably con¬ 
ferred different benefits, for the same worshipers 
kowtowed before different images. There were eight 
or ten separate rooms for worship. We asked several 
of the priests to let us take their photograph and no 
sooner than we had them standing out in the sun a 
regular mob surrounded us to watch the operation. 
The soldiers had to put them back. 

THE “RETURNED CHINESE STUDENTS” 

Living at the Y. M. C. A. while studying the lan¬ 
guage has given me a very good chance to see some¬ 
thing of the returned students, as they are called, 
particularly those from America and England. I have 
observed them with great interest and it is of them that 
I now want to write. 

The returned students are of several decades. There 
are the few of the earlier days, and the larger number 
of those who have gone abroad since the Boxer trouble, 
many of them on scholarships from the Boxer Indem¬ 
nity Fund. Many of the older men are in positions of 
prominence and authority, and the younger men in 
good numbers are rising rapidly into such positions. 
Coming back to China with a Western education, they 
are often put in charge of important enterprises. For 
instance, C. F. Wang, a younger brother of C. T. Wang, 
who has only been back in China a short while and who 
has been on the staff of the Y. M. C. A. as Returned 
Student Secretary, left last week to take charge of an 
iron and coal mine in Manchuria. He studied miner¬ 
alogy in Columbia University. Perhaps the largest 
proportion of the returning students come directly to 


NEW CHINESE IN OLD CHINA 


55 


Peking in the hope of working into government posi¬ 
tions. Including those who have studied in Japan, Mr. 
Wang told me that there were about a thousand of 
these men in Peking, half of them former students in 
American and English institutions. What has inter¬ 
ested me in this matter most deeply, so deeply that it 
rests upon my mind with great concern, is the fact that 
according to the investigation made by Mr. Wang in 
his work with them, only about forty of this last named 
five hundred are Christians. 

Mr. Wang has been having Returned Student Socials 
every two weeks. The idea is to provide a pleasant 
gathering for these fellows, with games and refresh¬ 
ments. Fifteen or twenty, and these mostly roomers 
in the Y. M. C. A. dormitory, usually make up the 
crowd. The men are fine looking, cultured and bright, 
but it has distressed me greatly to observe a kind of 
cynicism that occasionally appears in their remarks if 
there is any reference to religious matters. I don’t 
mean that there are religious discussions at these 
parties, but a single instance will illustrate what I 
mean. On Christmas Eve, Mr. Wang suggested that 
we begin by singing some Christmas carols and passed 
round some “Fellowship Hymns” books. When they 
were being distributed there was quite a bit of sarcasm 
expressed—just like some American college fellows 
give out about similar matters—about the prayer meet¬ 
ing we were going to have. Some accepted the books 
as if they were red hot. Mind you I am not con¬ 
demning them. It is confessed in the Y. M. C. A. that 
their most difficult field of endeavor is among the 
students who have returned from so-called Christian 


56 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


America and England. There are about sixteen or 
seventeen who room in the Y. M. C. A. Of these, 
three or four are Christians. The other day I offered 
to lead a Bible class for these men on Sunday morn¬ 
ings, and told Mr. Wang that three or four of them 
even would be worth the effort, but he said that it 
was very hard to get them to a Bible class. They 
said that they had been to America and knew all 
about that. It looks as if my offer will go begging. 

There are, on the other hand, Christian men of the 
finest character among them. C. T. Wang is an 
example. Mr. Fei of the Peking Y. M. C. A. is one of 
the finest men I have ever met, of any nationality. He 
impresses one from the first, his poise and dignity. He 
is a graduate of Oberlin. And I could name others. 

What has happened to most of these men in Amer¬ 
ica and England? Why has Christianity appealed to 
them so weakly? Where shall we look for the causes 
of this situation? Now-a-days there are some of the 
Chinese Christians who are saying—“Don’t send your 
boy to America—it will ruin him”. There is the old 
problem—Is it because of the college or what is in the 
boy, that the boy is ruined in his college days? The 
answer is usually—Both, sometimes more of one and 
less of the other. The Chinese student leaves his 
home for America. He is not a Christian. He goes 
to one of the large American Universities. (Not many 
of them are attracted to the smaller Christian colleges 
—they don’t even know of their existence.) He has 
more money perhaps than he has been used to, for the 
government allowance is very liberal. He sees the 
social life of the University, especially the extrava- 


NEW CHINESE IN OLD CHINA 


57 


gances of a certain class of students. He is often 
socially ignored, or if attractive may get in with the 
wrong kind of associates. He becomes more and more 
critical of what he thinks is the Christian life of Amer¬ 
ica. Indeed his Confucian morality may often exceed 
in quality the moral life of many he considers as repre¬ 
sentatives of Christianity. He is impressed with the 
organization of American life, the wealth and efficiency 
of big business, and this impression is in inverse ratio 
to that which he receives concerning our Christianity. 
He returns to his own land convinced that the real 
America is materialistic, wealthy, successful in its con¬ 
trol of nature’s forces; that there is little importance 
in the America which has sent out a lot of visionaries 
as missionaries to his native land. 

I am afraid much of his failure to find that Chris¬ 
tianity which we like to think is at the heart of our 
America, lies at our door. The finest product of 
Christianity is the Christian home, and how few of 
these Chinese students have had any acquaintance 
with real Christian homes. Why is it that so many 
people have great difficulty in accepting Chinese as 
their social and racial equals? It must be because they 
do not know them. The root of prejudice is ignorance. 
If I ever was doubtful on this point, a few months in 
Peking in contact with the scholarly dignity, the 
essential courtesy, the innate ability of so many 
Chinese, and the fine faces among both the men and the 
women of the educated classes which one sees, would 
thoroughly convince me. Of course, many Chinese are 
not acquainted with our forms of etiquette, but think 


58 


HOME LETTERS PROM CHINA 


how boorish and abrupt we must appear before we have 
learned their customs. 

Are the Chinese easy to attract to Christianity? Is 
it difficult to make friends with them? I have their 
own testimony to the fact that they welcome advances 
on the part of Americans, that they are at first strongly 
favorable rather than prejudiced against Christianity, 
that they hunger for friendship first of all, and after¬ 
wards we can give them the secret of the truest friend¬ 
ship, that with Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ. 

It is my feeling that more of the Chinese would 
become Christians if they found their way into some 
of the smaller colleges whose foundation and character 
are thoroughly and professedly Christian. They would 
not be lost in the crowd, they would be established in 
their undergraduate days, and later they could go to 
the Universities for special courses. Why shouldn’t 
these fellows be under decidedly Christian professors 
in their undergraduate days? One of the chief diffi¬ 
culties is that most of these students are government 
students, and are directed in their work by the govern¬ 
ment bureau. 

Certainly it is useless to expect that the sight of our 
railroads, our motor cars whirling along the streets, our 
skyscrapers, our campuses full of fine buildings, will 
bring these boys into the friendship of Jesus Christ. I 
am glad that this matter is finding its way into the 
hearts of many in America. There is now a committee 
for the promotion of friendly relations with foreign 
students organized under the Student Department of 
the Y. M. C. A., and sub-committees in some of the 
student centers. Genuine Christian hospitality to- 


NEW CHINESE IN OLD CHINA 


59 


wards these Chinese young men may not only mean the 
entertaining of angels unawares, but of future gov¬ 
ernors, statesmen, railroad and mill presidents, and the 
like, and no greater service to the promotion of right 
relationships between the East and West can be ren¬ 
dered than the simple act of having these fellows in our 
homes. 


THE NEW AND THE OLD IN CHINA 

We found this batch of mail when we came in from 
our week end visit out at Tsing Hua College which is 
the place where the Chinese boys are fitted to go to 
America on the indemnity money which America re¬ 
turned to China after the Boxer uprising. I was in¬ 
vited out to give the Friday afternoon talk to the Mid¬ 
dle school boys. We took lunch with Dr. Tsur, the 
President, a young Chinese not much past thirty, a 
graduate of Yale and Wisconsin. Later we were shown 
about the grounds by the Registrar, another young 
Chinese whom I had met at Lake Mohonk in New 
York. The grounds have the beginnings of a very 
beautiful campus. They were once the palace grounds 
of a prince, some say a leader of the Boxers. If so, it 
is quite the irony of fate, that on these grounds Amer¬ 
ican teachers are preparing boys to go to one of the 
hated countries, to bring back the West that he tried to 
expel. The campus has a high rock wall enclosing 
more than one hundred acres—a wall is inevitable in 
China. The gate is guarded by soldiers, who held us up 
when we arrived in our rickshas to ask for our cards. 
In the center is the Yamen which was the home of the 
Commission of Education to America. The low tiled 


60 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


roofs, odd shaped doorways, artificial rockeries, little 
pools of water, make it a charming place. The rest of 
the buildings are in foreign style. In the northeast 
corner of the campus are the homes of the American 
teachers. At three o’clock Friday I was introduced to 
an audience of two hundred Chinese boys by the acting 
dean of the College, whose English was faultless. (His 
father was taken to England for his education by Gen¬ 
eral Gordon.) I spoke without an interpreter on “The 
Principles that Should Govern the Choice of Life 
Work”, and the fact that the boys laughed at the right 
places is an indication that I was understood. All their 
instruction is in English, and so they had no difficulty 
in understanding a speech in English. 

I have intimated that the faculty is made up of both 
Chinese and American teachers. The Americans are 
chosen with the advice of the Y. M. C. A. office in New 
York. The first president of the school who was a 
Christian put this in the hands of the General Secre¬ 
tary of the Student Y. M. C. A. 

While at Tsing Hua we walked over to see the old 
summer palace, the Yuan Ming Yuan, built by Chien 
Lung, one of the greatest of the Manchu emperors. It 
is all in ruins now as it was ransacked and burned by 
the French and the British in i860 or thereabouts. 

The trees are all gone and the stones are turned one 
upon the other, but it is still a most interesting sight. 
The plan was made by Jesuit monks when they came 
to China two or three hundred years ago, and it is a 
great surprise to see Corinthian columns and remains 
of Italian architecture in distinctly Chinese surround¬ 
ings. The palace grounds are enormous in extent. 


NEW CHINESE IN OLD CHINA 


61 


They stretch from where the Emperor had a foreign 
village built in order to see how people in other parts 
live, through several foreign style palace buildings, to 
the strictly Chinese ancestral hall at the far west. The 
whole is surrounded by a wall about twenty feet high. 
Most of the buildings are built of white marble, mi¬ 
nutely carved. We saw the place where the Emperor 
had his marble throne. The throne is gone but the 
pedestal remains. Behind it are several bas-reliefs, 
which depict European armor, steel helmets, battle 
axes, and one relief has a couple of cannon crossed with 
balls between. There was a great central building on 
the top of which was a reservoir into which was pumped 
water. This water created pressure for a series of 
fountains on the outside staircases and for a pool below 
where twelve different figures during the twelve hours 
of the clock, took turns spouting water at a figure in the 
center. In another part of the grounds there was a 
labyrinth, whose intricacies amused those who tried to 
find their way out. This passage can still be traced. 
At another place the Emperor had a street for a fair, 
like those outside the palace, for the benefit of the 
women who could not go out of the palace grounds. 
There are many streams which wind through the park, 
and here and there small lakes with artificial islands. 
One island is a perfect circle; another is shaped like a 
swastica. One of the Tsing Hua professors has made 
quite a study of the place and he showed us pictures of 
the original which had been photographed from engrav¬ 
ings of the plans and from Chinese paintings of the 
palace. 


VI 


ARCHITECTURAL MONUMENTS 

VISITING TEMPLES OF HEAVEN AND HELL 

We have been to Shantung for our Easter holiday 
and have climbed the sacred mountain of Tai and 
visited the grave of the greatest of the Sages. 

We began the ascent of the mountain early in the 
day. Each of us was supplied with a mountain chair 
and three bearers—two men carrying at one time and 
an extra man to alternate and thereby ease the load. 
There are six thousand stone steps to the top of the 
mountain and literally millions of pilgrims have toiled 
their weary way to the summit to worship in the tem¬ 
ples. About every ten yards of the way there were beg¬ 
gars. They are said to make enough in the pilgrim sea¬ 
son which lasts a month or so to keep them the rest of 
the year. One of the most pitiable beggars, an old 
woman who seemed to be on the verge of death itself, 
we discovered on close inspection to be a dummy. 
Someone was doubtless near at hand to collect the coins 
that were thrown in her basket. 

The mountain has little vegetation, as it is really a 
great rock. The rocky surfaces are carved with various 
inscriptions, some of them showing the signs of great 
age. There are shrines at distances all the way up the 
ascent. We stopped at a half way house at noon for 
62 


ARCHITECTURAL MONUMENTS 


63 


lunch. Off to our left we could see the last stretch of 
our journey, still more precipitous than that we had 
come. It seemed almost as if it were a ladder, like 
Jacob’s, set up to heaven. The grade several estimated 
about 80%—a misstep of the chair bearers and down, 

down, down,-. At about four we passed through 

the south gate of heaven. A good many of us pre¬ 
ferred walking that last stretch. But the men do not 
make missteps—they would lose their jobs if that 
should happen. The valley was foggy so we missed the 
famous view. Confucius is said to have seen the sea, 
eighty miles away, from the top. Temples and monas¬ 
teries crowded the summit. All the Chinese religions 
are represented on the mountain, and the chair bearers 
are Mohammedans. We had only a few short minutes 
as the day was closing, so we did not see the site where 
in days agone pilgrims threw themselves over the cliff 
to death, nor did we see the man who alone in a temple 
eats a little less each day until he dies and another 
comes to take his place. But we saw enough to show 
how far the poor pilgrims are from the heaven they 
seek on the topmost height of their sacred mountain. 
A man with a woman, presumably his wife, she leaning 
heavily on a staff to relieve the weight from her con¬ 
tracted feet as well as to feel her way, for she was 
almost blind, came in to worship as we stood in the 
temple of the Mother of Heaven. The priest rang a 
gong, and they kneeled on the mat before the idol and 
touched their heads to the ground, and rising threw a 
few coins toward the shrine. The priest was as imper¬ 
sonal in his contact with them as a ticket taker in a 
subway in America. A little family came up and the 



64 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


boy and father and the mother prostrated themselves 
before the various shrines. Yes, there is good in all 
religions, but how academic the estimates of the scholar 
in some secluded study in the university sound when 
one faces the realities of lack and need. There was no 
comfort written on the face of that woman as she hob¬ 
bled away on her staff. 

It was dark when we reached the mission compound 
after our return trip. We came down very rapidly. 
The men carry the chair sidewise so that they both 
touch the same step—it makes it very easy riding. But 
the work soon wears them out. Our head man seemed 
to be about forty-five years old, a great strapping fellow 
about six feet tall, whose back was quite straight but 
his head and neck were carried forward as if he were 
continually looking for a step. He had stopped carry¬ 
ing the mountain chairs because it had affected his 
heart. He once boasted that none could carry a 
heavier load up the mountain. It is work for beasts or 
machines, not for men. The trip cost $1.40 per chair, 
think of it! 

The next morning, some of us took an early start 
and visited the Buddhist Temple of Hell in the city of 
Tai An. The gate of heaven on the evening before; 
this morning a glimpse of hell and its tortures. There 
were rooms with the pictures of the tortures, and stalls 
with clay images also representing the sufferings of the 
damned. Men were being thrown on spikes from off a 
high wall or into a fire, or naked were compelled to sit 
in the midst of ice, or were being sawn asunder, in these 
representations. 

That same day we made our pilgrimage to the grave 


ARCHITECTURAL MONUMENTS 


65 


of Confucius, just outside the city of Chufu. In the 
city is a magnificent Confucian temple, one of the few 
in China which contains a statue or image of Con¬ 
fucius. The grave is in a large walled enclosure in 
which are buried the descendants of the Kung clan for 
these many generations. The grave of the sage and of 
his son are off to one side, two large mounds of earth 
amid the trees, with great stones bearing a simple in¬ 
scription. There they have lain for over two thousand 
years. 

From Chufu we returned to Tsinanfu, the capital of 
Shantung. There is a tall pagoda on the mountain 
overlooking the city to which the city is supposed to be 
fastened by an invisible chain; if the chain by some 
chance would break the whole city would slip into the 
Yellow River. 

In Tsinan is the famous Whitewright Institute, still 
managed by its founder, Dr. Whitewright of the Eng¬ 
lish Baptist Mission. It is a combination of museums 
and lecture halls in an attempt to represent Western 
civilization and Christianity to the Chinese by means 
of charts, picture models, stereopticon, et cetera. 

A specially interesting section is the hygienic. There 
are charts and models showing the infection of food by 
flies in the stalls of dealers who have no screens, the 
necessity of ventilation, the evils of foot-binding, the 
way flies and mosquitoes transmit disease, how ponds 
and surface wells which supply the water for wash¬ 
ing clothes are breeding places of disease. The models 
are all made in the Institute under Mr. Whitewright^ 
direction by Chinese assistants. Mr. Whitewright said 
he had quite a time getting his assistants to make the 


66 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


courtyard and house dirty enough in one of the two 
models showing sanitary and unsanitary dwellings. In 
the lecture hall the walls are covered with charts, some 
showing the treatment of simple maladies, one set rep¬ 
resenting the Prodigal Son. Lectures are given every 
hour while the crowds are coming during the day. 
There is over a thousand daily attendance. There is 
another smaller lecture hall also. Among other things 
there is a diagram of the working of wireless teleg¬ 
raphy, observatories and telescopes, a comparative rail¬ 
road map of Shantung and England, a model of a large 
ocean steamship, a clean and well kept Chinese village 
(using constructive imagination), some specimens of 
modern machinery and farming implements, a big ex¬ 
hibit of soaps from Lever Brothers, Port Sunlight, Eng¬ 
land. These are all labelled in Chinese and English. 
You can well see why they say there is never a Chinese 
who visits Tsinan fu but makes one or more visits to 
the Institute. It is a great evangelistic agency as well 
as enlightening educational instrument. The lectures 
are usually gospel talks. 

That same day we also looked into the new hospital 
building which the English Baptists run in union with 
the American Presbyterians. How sunny and light it 
is and how comfortable and clean the wards! Outside 
of the compound on a little hill sat a group of Chinese 
men and women, some with bandaged heads, waiting 
for the opening of the out-patient department. I know 
of one hospital where they have to have two separate 
departments for in-patients; one is modern with spring 
beds for those who are willing to take a bath; the other 
is clean but Chinese style with hard board beds for 


ARCHITECTURAL MONUMENTS 


67 


those incorrigibles who cannot be persuaded that a bath 
is a means to health. A doctor told me that he found 
one Chinese, who had been tucked in for the night in a 
nice spring bed, on the floor later rolled up in his 
blankets. He declared that he couldn’t get to sleep be¬ 
cause the bed was too soft. 

The day we came up to Tientsin there blew a terrific 
dust storm which made it difficult to see out of the train 
windows. The air was yellow for the three hundred 
miles of the trip with the dust of the Northern desert. 
The force of the wind so retarded the speed of the train 
that we were six hours late. The dust seeps in through 
every tiny crack and covers the floor with a fine silt. It 
drifts up in the corner of the yard three or four inches 
deep at times. It is the northern substitute for spring 
rains. Dust storms sometimes travel as far south as 
Hankow. Once in a while the wind will ride so high 
that the storm passes over our heads without our feel¬ 
ing the wind; the sky is yellow and the dust sifts down. 

CONFUCIAN AND BUDDHIST WORSHIP 

Our regular Saturday afternoon outing took us to 
the Confucian and Lama Buddhist temples. I came 
away feeling that there was absolutely no reason to 
doubt that we have much to give to China who come in 
the name of Christ. Such a contrast to the Christian 
service at the American Board church we attended 
some weeks ago, where the people gathered before a 
fine-looking Chinese pastor, sang some of the beautiful 
hymns of the church, and recited the Lord’s Prayer to¬ 
gether, in the large, well lighted grey stone building, 


68 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


much like a church at home; the worshipers dressed 
in clean and becoming clothes, their faces all showing 
the light of the Glory of God. We visited the Con- 
fucian temple first. Here there were only a few men 
in attendance, caretakers of the property, not religious 
dignitaries. Worship of the Confucian tablets occurs 
only twice a year here. There is a main hall with great 
red pillars and a blue and gold dragon ceiling which 
would be quite beautiful if more light came in to 
illuminate the colors. The furnishings are very simple, 
consisting mainly in cabinets arranged in rows along 
two sides of the room, in each of which is a single red 
slab of wood, about six inches wide and sixteen inches 
tall, the tablet of some Confucian saint, and then in 
front of the room a very large cabinet containing a 
larger red tablet inscribed in gold letters to the Sage 
Confucius himself. In the courtyard of the temple are 
large booths ranged on each side of the walk to the 
main gate, containing enormous stone tablets, twenty to 
twenty-five feet high set on the backs of great stone 
turtles. These were erected by different emperors as 
memorials. If they had a good cleaning they would be 
magnificent, but now they are covered with dirt and the 
booths are falling into decay. 

Away from the deathlike quiet of this temple, broken 
only on the outside where we encountered a host of chil¬ 
dren, begging apparently at the behest of the temple 
keepers, we went to the Lama Buddha temple to see the 
priests at four o’clock worship. This is a larger place, 
the courtyards are full of priests in their red and yellow 
robes. But is was even dirtier and farther along in the 


ARCHITECTURAL MONUMENTS 


69 


way to decay. Money had to line the palms of the 
door-keepers before permission was given to enter the 
various rooms of the different buildings. These rooms 
were close and ill-smelling, the priests dirty of face 
and hands and clothes. All sorts of curiously formed 
images, Buddhas of many sizes and shapes, carved 
animals whose like would hardly be found in any book 
of natural history, altars crowded with masses of 
gilded ornaments not very carefully polished, left an 
impression of hideousness. In an inner building there 
is a gilded figure of Buddha seventy feet high, the 
structure built in four tiers around it. The room was 
so dark even in daytime that it was difficult to get an 
impression of it. There were no attendants on the 
vesper service but the priests and their acolytes. The 
men and boys sat in rows on low benches before low 
tables wrapped in their many robes because of the cold 
of the room, only taking out their hands when it was a 
part of the ritual to strike them together. They kept 
up a continual noise, a monotonous chant of sounds 
quite unintelligible to us, and perhaps to them also, the 
boys carrying the treble and the men growling out the 
bass. Two high priests in more elaborate robes stood 
before the altar which was covered with rice, or walked 
among the boys, or sat for a time at one side overlook¬ 
ing the group. 

The hopeful thing about it all is that as China gains 
in modern education, such things are soon discarded. 
Our business is to be on time in giving that which shall 
take the place of worn out superstition and save the 
land from irreligion. 


70 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


THE GREAT CHINESE WALL 

We were up at the Great Wall yesterday. Its name 
in Chinese is Wan Li Chang Cheng, the Ten Thousand 
Li Wall. A “li” is a third of a mile. The wall was 
built before the birth of Christ, about 200, and is 1500 
miles long. Our journey to the wall was made on the 
Peking-Kalgan R. R., which is a greatly admired piece 
of engineering through the mountains north of Pe¬ 
king, built entirely under the supervision of Chinese 
engineers. There are four or five tunnels and the fills 
on the side of the mountains are faced with masonry 
to keep the soil from washing away—better grading 
than any I have seen in America. The road cost less 
per mile to build than any other in China, and it is a 
fine evidence of the capacity of the Chinese race. The 
station where we alighted was just beyond a break in 
the Great Wall, made to let the trains pass through. 
From the station we walked about a mile to where the 
wall crossed over the railroad above a tunnel, and 
there we climbed up the hills and on to the wall itself. 
You have read descriptions of the wall already; the 
only thing left is to see it, like a great serpent crawling 
along the ridges and down into the valleys off into the 
distance beyond the sight. It is in a much better state 
of preservation than I had expected, and if the imple¬ 
ments of war were the same to-day as in ancient days, 
it would soon be patched up and serve as a real protec¬ 
tion. The wall in places rose so steeply up the moun¬ 
tain side that its top had to be constructed in steps. At 
other places the top was almost level. It is approxi- 


ARCHITECTURAL MONUMENTS 71 

mately fifteen feet wide at the top, and twenty feet 
high. The individual bricks are very large. 

We went and came in the same day, a party of eleven 
of us from the Language School. We ate our picnic 
lunch by the side of the old pass which is still used by 
camel and mule trains up toward Mongolia. We saw 
many such trains making their way slowly over the 
mountains. We also saw two men going along the road 
leading monkeys. They did not have an organ, how¬ 
ever. 

I forgot to take my kodak the other day and wanted 
it badly for a picture of a farmer on the highway with 
his carrying pole and two baskets slung over his shoul¬ 
der, each of the baskets loaded with a small youngster 
in a red jacket and big straw hats. 


VII 


SUMMERING IN CHINA 

CHINA progressing; but whither? 

Professor Jeremiah W. Jenks spoke to the Returned 
Students’ Social this afternoon. He gave this interest¬ 
ing experience. He said he was talking to one of the 
men of the legations who has had twelve years’ experi¬ 
ence in China, about the political crisis. I understood 
him to designate the man as one of the foreign ambas¬ 
sadors. The man was very pessimistic about the future 
of China. He feared that this present difficulty over the 
monarchy would throw the nation back two or three 
hundred years. He said the people are too selfish. 
Then as Dr. Jenks was leaving he said—“I don’t want 
to be misunderstood in regard to what I have said. I 
am not a religious man. As far as I am concerned it is 
all superstition. But my opinion is that unless Chris¬ 
tianity saves China, nothing can save her.” 

Dr. Jenks spoke of the difference in the country since 
he last visited here twelve years ago. At that time 
there was hardly a ricksha in Peking. Travel on the 
streets was in sedan chair or Peking cart. There was 
only one small strip of macadamized road; now there 
are macadamized streets in all directions. The type of 
Chinese official was wholly different then. Now most 
of the officials have had a part of their education 
72 


SUMMERING IN CHINA 


73 


abroad. Though still subject to criticism they are 
infinitely better than the former type. He thought that 
the progress of China, considering its size and the dif¬ 
ficulties in the way more wonderful than that of Japan, 
and given fifteen years of stable government it would 
surpass all that the world has ever seen. 

AT THE TEMPLE OF HEAVEN AGAIN 

On Monday of last week we were two of sixteen jolly 
picnickers at the Temple of Heaven. Salad, pickles, 
sandwiches, chicken, cake and ice-cream! We arrived 
at six in the evening and came home at nine. The moon 
came up early and we sat on the great marble altar fac¬ 
ing its pale light, watching the shadows of the arches 
and the sacrificial vessels—singing old ditties and col¬ 
lege songs. Some day that great park with its grass and 
ancient trees will be open to all who want to come, rich 
and poor alike; at least I hope so. Instead of being 
sacred to an Emperor’s feet it will be sanctified by the 
feet of little children who will romp out of the hot, 
crowded courts and dusty streets to play about the 
green. There is little provision for their play in the 
cities of China as yet. Japan has its beautiful parks, 
but apart from those in the foreign concessions of 
places like Shanghai and Tientsin, there are almost no 
public parks in this land. 

The ricksha ride home in the moonlight through the 
wide street up to the great Chien Gate—lighted up with 
lamps on either side and crowded with people who 
passed up and down looking at the wares laid out on the 
sidewalks for the evening market—the voices of the 
bargainers—the crowds in the open teashops—the sol- 


74 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


diers with guns slung across their shoulders keeping 
the street open and the carts to their proper side of the 
street (the left)—I wish you could see the picturesque 
sights with your own eyes. 

Saturday we went out to Tung-chau again, a kind 
of reunion of our Shantung party. We stayed at the 
American School for Missionaries’ children. The school 
children had all departed for home. We didn’t do 
much but talk and read and just enjoy each other’s 
company. I played several sets of tennis and read a 
book on Biblical Criticism. 

A TRIP TO CHEFOO 

It is Monday morning. Saturday evening astride a 
little donkey, I rode up the hill from the railroad sta¬ 
tion to this place, before which rolls the blue ocean. 
Behind and on either side the blue mountains shut us 
in. Between our hill which is only about ten min¬ 
utes walk from the beach, and the mountains which 
stretch back into Mongolia, is a beautiful valley green 
with the farms of the Chinese villagers. Our house is 
on the crest of East Cliff—perhaps twenty or thirty 
cottages are on this side. About three miles to the 
west are the majority of the summer homes, at Rocky 
Point. There they have the auditorium and the base¬ 
ball field. We have three families in our cottage—all 
more or less newly-wed. 

I found the household down by the sea, eating supper 
on a little promontory that juts out into the waves. I 
was in time for a bit of ice-cream. It was wonderfully 
beautiful there in the evening, but I had little thought 


SUMMERING IN CHINA 75 

for aught else than my sweetheart, for it seemed an age 
since I left her for Chefoo. 

I went to Chefoo to attend a missionary conference. 
I boarded a boat at Tientsin. A trip of eight hours 
down the winding muddy river—so narrow at places 
that once we ran full into the bank and cut the road 
that ran along the edge quite in two—brought us to the 
Taku forts and the Gulf of Pei Chihli. On the way 
down the river we watched the farmers irrigating their 
land. One way was for two men seated on opposite 
sides of a hole cut in the bank into which the river 
poured, with ropes to swing a bucket down into the 
water and with a swing bring the water up to empty it 
into runways that traversed the field. The bank where 
they worked was perhaps fifteen feet high, quite steep. 
Another method was for a single man to work a kind of 
well sweep which threw the water up into the fields 
from the river. 

I met old Dr. Hunter Corbett at supper one evening 
while at Chefoo. It took him six months to come to 
China in a sailing vessel. He is still very vigorous. 
One of his sons is a missionary in Tung-chau. I have 
now shaken hands with perhaps the three oldest mis¬ 
sionaries in China: Dr. Goodrich and Dr. Corbett, both 
over eighty, and Dr. Martin, who is past ninety. 

a missionary’s development 

I was talking with a missionary about intellectual 
growth during the years of service in China. He rather 
smiled at the idea that I was determined so to grow. 
He seemed to feel that it was not necessary when work¬ 
ing with people who are so far from having caught up 


76 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


with the present. But his doubts are a challenge to me. 
I think it is a great pity that so many missionaries feel 
that the press of their work means that they have no 
time for new books or fresh contact with the thought of 
the world outside. The attitude that anything will do 
for the Chinese, that we know more than they do any¬ 
how, will suffer a rude shock some day. It is like the 
department stores in Shanghai, established by for¬ 
eigners along the old and conservative lines, carrying 
on business in the same old way for these many years; 
but modern Chinese have come in now and established 
up-to-date stores as fine as those in our large cities in 
the rear. But there are missionaries of long service who 
are as alive and keen to the modern world as any of the 
younger men, just out from America. It can be done. 
There are more difficulties and hindrances in the way to 
be sure, but they should only stimulate us to a finer 
struggle. Must the poetry, the love of the beautiful, 
the wonder of worship under the spell of music in build¬ 
ings whose architecture uplifts the soul—must these all 
die out in this country which knows so little of them; 
then how will we ever bring them in. The drag is down¬ 
ward, but we must lift the harder upwards. There are 
those who say that our mission buildings should be on 
the same scale as the common, unadorned, buildings 
which we see about us; that the Chinese do not need 
money spent on beautiful architecture or on modern 
conveniences. What they have been used to is good 
enough. But why is not the same argument used as to 
the religion we preach? Why come at all? Let them 
have the religion that they have always been used to. 


SUMMERING IN CHINA 


77 


REST AND STUDY 

Our first summer in China is nearing its end. Our 
first year in China is almost over. Do years always run 
by so fast? And do they almost seem as a dream rather 
than the real living in a real world. The China that we 
now know—and after all we only know a bit of it—is 
like a dream, so different is it from all our thought be¬ 
fore we came. 

Who could have dreamed of a summer in China like 
the one we have spent in Peitaiho! China must be all 
desert, we think before we arrive. But here is a place 
whose beauty surpasses description, for it is new every 
morning as the mists rise off the mountains across the 
blue bay, and fresh every evening as the glory of the 
colors of the setting sun spread along the shoulders of 
the peaks, south, west, and north. Think of blue 
mountains and blue ocean together. The range runs 
right down into the sea to the northeast of us at Shan- 
haikwan. That is the eastern end of the Great Wall. 
The name means the pass between the mountains and 
the sea. Just this side of Shanhaikwan is the port of 
Chingwantao—opposite us across the half circle of a 
bay. When the weather is very clear we can see the 
steel poles of the Japanese wireless station there. 
Steamers from coast ports and Japan come and go. 
Occasionally a gunboat comes in and at night flashes 
its searchlight about the harbor. The American trans¬ 
ports land their detachment for Tientsin and Peking at 
Chingwantao, and take the returning troops on board. 
Early in the morning and late in the evening are seen 
the square sails of the Chinese fishing junks. 


78 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


Shanhaikwan is a famous place. Through this pass 
have poured the invading Mongols and the later 
Manchus. Battles like unto Thermopylae have more 
than once been fought here. The wall is now falling 
into pieces. I wonder if the Japanese will some day 
come through that same pass which has failed to keep 
back the invaders of earlier days. 

By the side of many of the houses in East Cliff are 
the ruins of the houses of Boxer days. From this place 
many of the fleeing missionaries took ship. I have 
been looking at these ruins as the remains of torches of 
the frenzied Boxers, but one of the older missionaries 
corrected that impression. She said the natives here¬ 
abouts thought that the foreigners had left China for 
good, and after they fled the villagers round about came 
and dismantled all the houses, taking away all the 
woodwork, all the furnishings and what brick they 
wanted. I noticed one of the houses subsequently and 
saw no mark of fire upon it though its ruin was com¬ 
plete. Only the walls were left standing. 

This resort was prospected and settled by mission¬ 
aries, but in these days members of the business com¬ 
munities of the port cities are crowding into them. 
They have plenty of money and their coming means a 
general rise in the cost of living for all of us. Houses 
are in great demand, and as it is more profitable to rent 
to a business man at a large figure than to a missionary 
at a small one, it is becoming more and more difficult 
to make ends meet there unless one owns a house. Be¬ 
fore the days of summer resorts for the missionaries 
when they used to spend all the year at their stations of 


SUMMERING IN CHINA 


79 


work, the death rate among missionary babies was very 
high. Now when the hot season comes on the mothers 
and babies are sent off to the seashore or the mountains, 
the fathers following later for a month or so. All need 
the inspiration and mental stimulation of fellowship 
with others from widely separated parts of China, and 
tired bodies need the recreation of swimming and tennis 
and baseball. One of the most refreshing elements of 
the summer life there is the Sunday service in English 
with two or three hundred people in attendance. Not 
having had such a privilege of worship during the year 
back in the interior, makes this afternoon service a 
cherished advantage to many missionaries. If we are 
to help in God’s work of giving men visions in the midst 
of the plain where their hearts are inclosed by sin and 
their bodies, many of them, by mud walls, we need to 
get away for a season into the mountains. 

Peitaiho is just one of the summering places. The 
most famous in China is Ruling, on a high mountain 
in the Yangtse valley. There is a mountain resort near 
us in Honan which we shall probably go to when we are 
located in Kaifeng. Sometimes missionaries take a trip 
to Japan in the summer. 

For the first few days we have been doubling up on 
our study of Chinese to get ready for examinations that 
come on the fourteenth and fifteenth of September. 
We must be able to recite twenty Chinese proverbs 
besides our work in character writing and the reading 
in Mark and the text book. We have learned sufficient 
characters to be able to take our turn at reading a verse 
in turn at Chinese prayers every morning, with some 


80 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


prompting now and then. We shall be glad to be at 
Kaifeng where we can learn by using what we have. 

Yesterday we had the final baseball game of the sea¬ 
son with the American soldiers. We beat them 12-5. 


VIII 


KAIFENG 

TRAVELING ON CHINESE TRAINS 

We left Peitaiho on Friday, September 8th, after a 
week of wonderful weather—clear and cool. On the 
trip back to Peking I stopped off at Tientsin to shop for 
a day. The foreign part of that city is beautiful with 
many fine buildings and residences. That night I 
went to a band concert in Victoria Park given by the 
American Military Band. Promenading up and down 
and around the band stand, which stood in a blaze of 
electric lights amid myriads of flowers, were soldiers 
and civilians of many nations with their ladies, the 
civilians, many of them, in dress clothes, and the offi¬ 
cers resplendent in duck and gold braid. After the con¬ 
cert, a friend took me to an ice-cream parlor, and we 
had real ice-cream on the roof garden, while ragtime 
was played on a piano near by. Oh you China! 

You have heard of the heavy loads Chinese coolies 
carry. I saw some at Tientsin carrying cotton bales 
weighing 2 50 pounds from the wharf to the warehouse, 
a distance of perhaps a third of a mile. One man to a 
bale, and the overseer told me he gave them two cop¬ 
pers a trip. They carried them on the back of their 
necks in such a position as to cause agony to an 
ordinary man. 

81 


82 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


The train to Peking Saturday afternoon was packed 
to the roof. I had a third class ticket. The seats were 
all full. Our seat meant for four had six people in it. 
The aisles were crowded with people seated on their 
baggage. A trip through the car had to be made over 
piles of baggage and heads of passengers. When they 
go from place to place, Chinese travelers appear to 
carry all their worldly goods and when they board 
trains it is a poor man that gets on last. They hardly 
give time for the passengers to get off before they pile 
into the cars, arms full of boxes and baskets and bed¬ 
ding, followed by coolies with the rest of their load, and 
it is one grand scramble with bumped heads and near 
fights for desirable locations. It usually ends, however, 
in everyone having a seat even if that is on the floor 
where the best of them can pull out their little brass 
pipes and smoke in comfort. No smoking cars in 
China. The air is heavy and blue at all times and in all 
cars with smoke from male and female lungs. 

TAKING UP WORK AT KAIFENG 

This is my first letter from Kaifeng. I guess you 
will see a good many with this address in weeks to 
come. I hope they will all be full of as happy news as 
this one. We are glad that we are here—very glad. 
We have felt quite at home and as we have seen more 
of the missionaries and natives and more of the city and 
country round about and touched at the edges of the 
opportunity for service and looked forward to the 
future we have felt that we could ask for nothing more 
promising as we begin our life as missionaries in China. 

We are now living with the Sallees in the South 


KAIFENG 


83 


Suburb in their new home on the school compound. 
The country that stretches out and away from us is 
quite flat; it is a wide plain on the south side of the 
Yellow River. Kaifeng is six miles from the river. 
The city is protected by a series of dikes, for it is below 
the level of the river. The Yellow River has changed 
its course many times. It now empties into the sea two 
or three hundred miles distant from where it did in the 
twelfth century. It is very broad and shallow. In the 
summer at the time of the high waters there is great 
danger from floods. 

Last night at six o’clock, I walked across the fields 
from prayer meeting as the sun was setting. Not far 
above the crimson clouds along the horizon hung the 
new moon. Clumps of dark green trees dotted the 
plain, with here and there a group of buildings casting 
long shadows. The earth of the fields was much of it 
newly turned. Farmers passed by carrying homeward 
their tools, or driving their two wheeled carts along 
the uneven road. Off to one side a military camp was 
partially hid in the willows that surrounded it on all 
four sides, the weeping branches bending over the 
shallow” moat at the foot of the wall. Two buglers out 
in the front parade ground were sounding out the 
evening calls. Behind us in the darkening shadows 
rose the wall of the city, and nearby the tall smoke 
stacks of the arsenal stretched up into the night. You 
are learning with me—I through my own eyes, and you 
I hope through my letters—that there is much of 
beauty in this old land. It is not hard to think of a 
Chinese exile longing for his own dear landscapes. 

The missionaries bring much of the Western idea of 


84 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


beauty into their immediate surroundings. Mrs. Sallee 
loves her flowers. Roses just now are always on the 
table—La France roses at that. They have a fine 
garden and cows. The dairy is to be an industrial 
feature of the school. Milk and butter are not yet 
staples on the Chinese tables. The death rate of little 
children is heightened for one reason because they do 
not use cow’s milk. A carpenter shop is also to be 
developed and later agricultural ventures. These de¬ 
partments will not only be educational but will supply 
opportunities for self help for students who have not 
money. 

Inside the city back in the Chinese courtyards of the 
well-to-do are often hid a few fine trees and flowers. 
There are several flower gardens outside the East gate 
that supply potted plants to the inhabitants. In chrys¬ 
anthemum season, pots can be purchased for ten or 
fifteen cents each. We are to live inside the city in a 
Chinese house. We hope to be able to make our little 
courtyard attractive. We have been in to look the 
place over several times and have been making plans 
to fit it up for our habitation. There are three sides of 
a square in the place; one story high. On the south 
will be our living room and bed-room; on the east the 
dining room and kitchen, on the west the guest room 
and store room. 

Kaifeng is a fine Chinese city. Many of the streets 
are macadamized. In the better business streets there 
are many fine looking shops. One, a big jewelry shop, 
has a glazed brick front decorated with gold lettered 
signs. The fact that the jewelry stores are as big and 
prosperous as any of the establishments is a sign that 


KAIFENGr 


85 


Chinese have money hidden somewhere. Their jewelry 
is made of pure gold, without any alloy, and so is rather 
soft. The women wear earrings, jeweled hair orna¬ 
ments, finger rings, and the men wear finger rings. 
The babies of the prosperous are also decorated with 
jewelry. There are photographic supplies on display in 
some of the show windows, and foreign shoes, and in 
the Five Nations Drug Store, American and Japanese 
patent medicines, as well as the Chinese brand of these 
modern decoctions. The squeaking wheelbarrows with 
their enormous loads, as much as four hundred pounds 
pushed by one man; an occasional camel train bringing 
wheat from the country; the ubiquitous ricksha; the 
multitudes of pedestrians who know not such things as 
sidewalks; congest the highways. Did one ever see so 
continuously such crowds of people! Rarely ever do 
you pass a foreigner in these streets, and you soon 
know all of those you may perchance meet. The 
policemen look quite as trim as those who patrol the 
streets in Peking in their black uniforms with white 
trimmings, swords swung at their sides. On night duty 
the swords are changed for carbines. 

Our work here is just a little over ten years old. It 
is only now beginning to open up. There are only two 
other men in the station here as yet. I am teaching a 
class in English and trying to catch on to the other 
work. The great hope that soon we shall have a real 
plant in the city keeps me from being disheartened 
when we gather for church and see people turn away 
because there is no place to sit down even on the plank 
seats that have no backs. The people are the first 
thing and then the place, but now that we are getting 


86 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


the people we must have a place. The paper windows 
are torn, the bricks of the floor are damp, the rooms 
where the Sunday school classes are held are dark and 
dismal, but I have been surprised again and again to 
see how many fine faces there are in the crowd which 
comes; how many school boys from government 
schools, and nicely dressed business men, and neat 
looking women. 

Five new members were baptized on Sunday, three 
men, a woman, and one of the school girls. The same 
day we celebrated the Lord’s Supper together. Seeing 
these things makes me anxious to be in the city and at 
work. I haven’t tried to make a speech yet but have 
been asked to lead chapel in the boys’ school as soon as 
I can get ready, and I expect to make a stab at it soon. 
Perhaps the larger part of what is said in the services is 
now understandable, but it is easier to listen than to try 
to talk oneself. But I don’t want to put off that 
attempt too long. To fire away and make mistakes is 
the only way to learn how to talk this lingo. 

FACING THE GREAT HARVEST 

We are in the midst of it; real China and real mis¬ 
sionary work. So many words in the New Testament 
glow anew as we live our days in the heart of China. I 
think we can feel more of what Jesus had on his heart 
when he said—“Lift up your eyes and look on the fields 
that they are white unto the harvest”—a harvest never 
before touched. Honan is one of the most thickly 
populated of the provinces of China. There is an 
estimated population of over thirty million and Kaifeng 
is the governmental and educational and business 


KAIFENG 


87 


center for these millions. I don’t suppose the radius of 
a circle that would take in as many people as lived in 
Palestine when Jesus walked among men would stretch 
many miles beyond the walls of this city as a center. 
And the followers of Christ inside that circle will 
hardly exceed those of the day of Pentecost. The con¬ 
ditions are not exactly alike but similar. Go on a coun¬ 
try trip and the instructions to the seventy take on new 
meaning. And then the newness of the gospel. The 
Chinese word is Fu Yin—“The Happy Sound”, words 
that mean to them more what the word “Evangel” 
meant to the early Christians, than the long adapted 
term “gospel” means to Christians in America. Our 
preaching places are called Fu Yin Tang, or “Happy 
Sound Halls”. Churches are sometimes dignified with 
the name Li Bai Tang—or “Worship Halls”. 

You can hardly know how it feels to preach to people 
who have never heard, to whom the terms of the gospel 
are as strange as the message they convey. If you 
could only see the group that comes on Sunday to the 
services. In the midst are the members of the church; 
if all come, perhaps a handful of seventy or eighty men 
and women. There are those who have come before, 
whose ears have been caught by an unheard-of message 
of Light and Life and who want to hear more. There 
are the curious who have come in for the first time 
whose number is far from small each time we open the 
chapel. The speaker must always have this latter class 
in mind, and that means that the gospel must be 
sounded out so that a wayfarer may understand. With 
what simplicity and wisdom and earnestness, realizing 
the responsibility of the moment, it all must be done. 


88 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


They are people who have never seen anyone close 
their eyes in prayer to the heavenly Father—they will 
wonder whom we are speaking to; they have never 
heard a Christian hymn, perhaps never heard the word 
for the supreme God. Everything they see is strange; 
everything they hear is stranger still. 

I was sitting in our afternoon preaching service in 
the school chapel a while ago. It ministers not only to 
the schoolboys but is attracting an increasing number 
of people from the immediate vicinity and the villages 
round about. These village settlements you must un¬ 
derstand are often no more than a mile apart. There 
was a group of soldiers from a nearby camp sitting 
near me and as Mr. Sallee announced the Scripture 
reading I moved back to let one of them look on my 
testament. Two others crowded up to see it too. (The 
Christians all carry their own bible and hymn book 
wrapped up in a handkerchief to church.) The pas¬ 
sage was the description of the crucifixion and the 
sermon was on the three groups that looked on; the 
haters, the indifferent, and the disciples. When we 
sang hymns the soldiers tried to follow the strange 
foreign tunes. One of them during the service felt 
several times of the cloth of my coat to see what it 
was made of. I was told recently how Mr. Chang, one 
of the teachers in the school, who now teaches a Bible 
class in the afternoon Sunday school which follows the 
preaching, became a Christian. When he first came to 
the school about three years ago he was not a Christian. 
He was greatly displeased to eat with the boys when 
they had grace before meals. He was a Confucianist 
scholar. But he began to come to church. At first he 


KAIFENG 


89 


sat far in the rear, but slowly his prejudice was over¬ 
come and he gradually moved nearer and nearer the 
front to listen. And finally his heart was won. It is so 
often this way. 

Two of the schoolboys are my Chinese teachers now. 
One of them is the son of an evangelist in Chengchow. 
His father was once a carter, a terribly bad man, 
wrathy, vile of speech, an opium smoker. The family 
did not want him to become a Christian but they could 
not gainsay the transformation of his life which came 
about when he accepted Christ. Boys like these, some 
of them, the second generation of Christians being 
trained in Christian schools are the hope of the church 
in China. 

I said that is like living in the time of Jesus. The 
primitive is still seen on every hand despite railroads, 
electric lights, and telegraph. There are four wheeled 
carts drawn by oxen and donkeys together, which have 
no fifth wheel on the front axle. They follow along in 
the ruts of the road until it is necessary for the carter 
to turn it about by hand. There are threshing floors 
with donkeys or oxen treading out the grain with stone 
rollers. These floors are simply hard smooth spaces of 
earth. The men toss the straw into the air with wooden 
pitchforks made from branches of trees conveniently 
shaped and the wind drives the chaff away. The 
women sit grinding at a mill, the flat stones crushing 
the grain. In the fields as the grain is harvested follow 
the gleaners, who seem to come from everywhere to 
catch up what is left. Sometimes the owners of the 
field literally have to fight in order to save their grain 
from these gleaners who do not stop with what might 


90 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


rightfully belong to them. The big gate of the city 
closes each evening. When we are in the city for a 
meeting at night it has to be opened by the soldiers to 
let us pass out. They are always very careful who 
goes in or out and it is difficult to get a permit for this 
purpose. “Where thieves break through and steal” 
means something in a country parts of which are in¬ 
fested with robbers. Out in our country field they 
have been at work recently robbing and kidnapping 
people who are held for ransom. And yet, strange to 
say, one feels often more safe on the streets of the city 
of Kaifeng at night than he would in certain parts of 
big cities in the United States. “But climbeth up some 
other way” also has significance where there is a wall 
around every dwelling or public building. One still 
sees old officials carried through the streets by their 
chair bearers. 

I have been to a heathen funeral, that of the grand¬ 
father of one of the boys in the school. It was a two 
day affair of feasting and ceremony. The grandfather 
had died several months before but was only then being 
buried. The place was an inn. I had to force myself 
in through the crowd as I followed a servant who had 
been sent to fetch me. On all sides were the paper 
images which were to be burned at the grave; horses, 
deer, paper money, paper houses and paper men and 
women servants. At the gate was the bier to be car¬ 
ried on the shoulders of twenty-four men, covered over 
with a brilliant red silk coverlet richly embroidered, 
waiting for the coffin. We were taken into a small 
room at the side where with four Chinese guests we 
were served an elaborate feast which we ate with chop- 


KAIFENG 


91 


sticks. All about the door as we dined was a crowd of 
interested spectators who wanted to see how foreigners 
acted at a feast. The servants shouted at the top of 
their voices to get a passage for entrance with the 
food. Once some priests passed the door playing on 
some curious musical instruments which sounded like 
bag-pipes without any tune. They went to get water 
from a nearby well to place before the coffin. It had 
something to do with the cleansing of the dead man’s 
sins. Before the room where the coffin lay was set up 
a tablet to the dead man before which the guests pros¬ 
trated themselves. We, of course, omitted that cere¬ 
mony. There were two hundred invited guests, each 
one of whom is supposed to bring a present of some 
kind. Hired musicians are always at their drums or 
weird pipes, pounding or droning out weird sounds. 
When we entered the court where the tablet was, the 
mourners of the family dressed in white came out of 
the room where the coffin lay and looked with curiosity 
at us as we with curiosity looked at the strange array. 
A veil of white cloth hangs over the face of the women 
mourners who wail aloud as they go through the streets 
in carts to the grave. 

There are some queer superstitions connected with 
death. One is that the soul does not leave the house 
until after the body is gone. This is rather a fearful 
thought. Danger is overcome by placing a pan of 
water in the doorway of the room where the body lay. 
A spirit cannot cross over water and so is confined in 
that room until a spirit doctor comes and determines 
that the spirit has departed the house. Wine is placed 
on the coffin and as it is usually gone the next day (by 


92 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


evaporation of course) the spirit is supposed to have 
drunk it. All the water that one has used in bodily ab¬ 
lutions must be drunk in the spirit world. This not 
very pleasant prospect is ingeniously overcome in this 
manner. The earthenware bowl which is provided for 
this purpose is punctured by each son in order of birth 
as a filial act, and so the more sons a man has the bet¬ 
ter his chances that his bowl won’t hold water when he 
goes to drink the aforementioned draughts. This bowl 
is broken on the coffin as it leaves the home, to become 
a spirit bowl in the other world but a spirit bowl that 
leaks. Of course, not all the people believe these 
superstitions. 

It is peanut season here in this region. Along the 
streets in little shops or in open lots crowds of women 
and children are seated on the ground shelling them 
with their teeth; for all I know to be used as salted 
peanuts in the Five and Ten Cent Stores in America. 
They are shipped out of Kaifeng by the carload. The 
sandy soil roundabout suits the crop. 

AN AMERICAN-CHINESE GIRL 

We have already received a reply from Harrisburg 
to our cablegram containing the one word—Emmanuel. 
It comforts us greatly to know that the news was re¬ 
ceived promptly and correctly and that there is no long 
wait before you learn of the great happiness which now 
you share with us. How wonderful this day and gen¬ 
eration is. Just think how long it took for news to 
travel from the first missionaries—what suspense there 
must have been. Over two years for a letter from 
Adoniram Judson. Now not only you but also our 


KAIFENG 93 

friends ha\e been notified and the little girl is not yet 
three days old. 

We are happy that she is a little girl. We want to 
show the Chinese how we can welcome a girl baby. 
The Chinese servants have all congratulated us, and the 
Chinese women have been in to see the little red face 
hid in the blankets. The boys and girls in the two 
schools seemed also much interested. 

I enclose a picture of the house where your first 
grandchild was born and a tiny lock of hair to show 
you that she is really and truly here. I shall write more 
later—it is rather hard to collect one’s thoughts just 
now. 


IX 


CHRISTMAS IN CHINA 

THE ENTRANCE OF THY WORD GIVETH LIGHT 

Perhaps you remember that when I was in Peking I 
taught in the Y. M. C. A. night school in the West 
City branch. The head secretary there is Mr. Chang, 
a young man of twenty-seven years, a graduate of the 
Customs College with high honors, who gave up his 
chance for a high salaried position in the Customs to go 
into Christian work. He was baptized just two years 
ago. 

He happened in on us Sunday. In our conversation 
he told me how he became interested in Christianity. 
He and a friend were studying English together in the 
Customs College. They heard one of the professors 
talking about making good resolutions at the beginning 
of the New Year in their studies. They thought that a 
good resolution as far as their study of English was 
concerned would be to read the Bible every day, for it 
could be secured in Chinese as well as English and so 
could be conveniently used. They began to read to¬ 
gether. Mr. Chang said that he was not interested at 
first, but he wanted to keep his resolution so he con¬ 
tinued the reading. Then Mr. Mott held his meetings 
in Peking and Mr. Chang signed up for one of the 
Bible classes which were formed at that time. He was 
94 


CHRISTMAS IN CHINA 


95 


disappointed in the Bible class but it brought him into 
relations with some Christian men. After this he went 
to the Y. M. C. A. summer conference and became at¬ 
tracted to several foreign missionaries. But his father 
was opposed to the whole business. Some of the men 
got him to help in the work of the Y. M. C. A. and he 
pretty soon became indispensable though he put off 
joining the church. Finally they asked him to help in 
an evangelistic campaign. Mr. Chang laughed at the 
strangeness of the proceedings for he had not joined 
the church himself. But he did help and had a fine 
time. He kept saying, however, how can I try to help 
others if I do not act myself. And so he made his deci¬ 
sion. His friend also became a Christian. 

While here in Kaifeng he made a talk to some of the 
other schoolboys. To hear a fellow just out of 
heathenism two years, using his Bible, and talking so 
intelligently about the Christian life was thrilling. He 
said that he would never have become a Christian if he 
had not thought that it meant work. He spoke of the 
sins that stand in the way of Chinese becoming Chris¬ 
tians and how in personal work they must be dealt 
with; of the objections which the Chinese presented, 
for example—“It’s a foreign Religion”—“Confu¬ 
cianism is just as good”—“Christianity overthrows re¬ 
spect for ancestors”—“There is a political motive be¬ 
hind foreign missions”. Mr. Chang replied to these ob¬ 
jections; for instance—Confucius taught doctrine but 
Christ is the doctrine; Jesus cared for his own mother 
when he was in agony on the cross, and so on. 

Mr. Chang told me that Mr. Yung Tau, the wealthy 
Pekingese whom I wrote of before, who has since be- 


96 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


come a Christian, has given $11,000 to purchase a lot 
for the Independent Congregational Church in Peking. 
This church is wholly Chinese in its leadership and its 
financial management. 

The Mr. Chang in our school of whom I wrote on 
October 14 has been taking his turn leading the school 
chapel. He is reading through the New Testament in 
his private devotions and he speaks of what he has 
learned in his reading. Not long ago he was talking on 
verses in Corinthians and this week he had a verse in 
Galatians. It is always interesting to see a fresh mind 
which is alert approach the New Testament. His verse 
was—“Henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear in 
my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” He spoke of 
the Judaizers against whom the book was directed, 
and how they were trying to impose the mark of cir¬ 
cumcision on the Gentile Christians. He said that 
instead of circumcision, Paul spoke of the marks of the 
Lord Jesus, and these were sufficient. He illustrated his 
point by speaking of the Seventh Day Adventists who 
are troubling the churches in these parts by proselyting 
among the Christians. They are like the Judaizers, 
seeking to add what is not the gospel, not the marks of 
the Lord Jesus. A Confucianist a year ago—to-day a 
defender of the faith. 

I have been teaching the schoolboys some Christmas 
hymns. They enjoy singing very much. We are pre¬ 
paring a Christmas play—“No Room in the Inn.” 
They asked me to teach them “My Jesus I Love Thee” 
in English. We are learning, “Hark the Herald Angels 
Sing”. At one place there is a skip over a note, but 
the boys insist on singing it down the scale. One little 


CHRISTMAS IN CHINA 


97 


fellow, eleven or twelve years old, out of the forty or 
so, caught on and he only. He has a choir boy voice, 
high and clear. So I made him stand up beside me and 
said to the boys: “I shall sing the place incorrectly and 
he will sing it correctly.” He did it just right. Then 
I reversed the performance, singing correctly myself 
and having him sing it incorrectly to illustrate just 
where the mistake was. He did exactly as he was told. 
Then I let some of the other boys sing with the little 
fellow observing whether they were right or not. 
When I left I told them that he could be their teacher 
on that point. And when I got back to the house I 
could hear his high piping voice singing the passage 
with the older boys trying to catch on. 

There are a great many birds in this region. Wild 
geese wheel along over head every now and then in V 
formation. And the number of crows and magpies 
must exceed that of the people. In the evening droves 
of magpies coming home to nest darken the sky at times 
for over a mile. The crows delight to roost in the 
temple eaves. Sometimes the temple roofs are black 
with them. 

PREPARING FOR CHRISTMAS 

To-day has been a very busy day. This morning 
after the sermon, the children recited Christmas verses 
and sang Christmas songs for the older people in 
church. They were as cute as the little tots in Amer¬ 
ica who go through the same kind of a performance, 
and more interesting to me as I thought of the homes 
from which they come, and how differently they are 
being influenced from the multitudes around them. 


98 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


The little chaps all puffed out in their wadded garments 
looked quite comical. There is no stove in the church 
and the cold wind sweeps in but the Chinese stand it 
fairly well in their padded clothes and fur jackets. 
Still I don’t believe they enjoy being cold any more 
than we do. We foreigners have to wrap up in rugs and 
keep our overcoats and hats on and wear galoshes to 
endure the temperature. It’s a great life. You can 
stand much more than you think possible in coddled 
America. 

I have almost forgotten that the Chinese are of a dif¬ 
ferent race. Teaching the Chinese boys and playing 
with them, mingling with the members of the church, I 
am hardly conscious of the difference of their features 
or their clothes. Many of the Chinese in this part of 
China have not the pronouncedly slanting eyes. In 
stature they measure up to the average American. I 
see faces every now and then which remind me of 
people at home. Those who do not work in the open 
fields are often as white skinned as many American 
brunettes. The clothes that seemed so strange at first 
now appear most natural. The distinction between a 
well-dressed and a poorly dressed person is as pro¬ 
nounced as in the West. There is true gracefulness and 
beauty in the costumes of the better clad. Mr. Wang, 
one of the school teachers is a handsome gentleman, 
who knows how to wear his clothes. His winter suit is 
a black satin jacket, a long garment under that which 
reaches to his shoe tops of olive green silk lined with 
white Astrakhan, a soft fur cap, and shoes lined with 
gray fur the edges showing above the shoe tops. I 
believe such clothes are really more artistic than ours 


CHRISTMAS IN CHINA 


99 


and certainly warmer in winter. The clothes of the 
women are as fine in their own way. They usually 
wear dark colored silks, green and brown and gray 
colors predominating. They do not wear hats. Over 
their heads they wear a small black bandeau and brush 
their black hair smoothly back to a knot in the neck 
in which is stuck pretty gold or silver or jade orna¬ 
ments. If it were not for the bound feet that make 
them hobble, some of them would be very beautiful. 
Indeed, in communities like Peking where the young 
women have grown up without binding their feet, in 
the church services can be seen girls who are as beauti¬ 
ful with their rose tinted olive complexions as girls any¬ 
where in the world. 

IPs Christmas eve in China and all’s well with us. 
Helen joins me in lots of love to you all. 

A CHRISTMAS PROGRAM IN CHINA 

We have moved into the city and this is the first let¬ 
ter I have written to you in the little home which is 
our first ever, in the midst of the city of Kaifeng. All 
around us are Chinese. There is an inn on the east 
and a residence of some official on the west. Our com¬ 
pound runs North and South from Drum Tower Street 
to Cattle Market Street. 

I wrote about preparations for Christmas in a former 
letter. The boys gave their play at the church on 
Christmas night. Besides “No Room in the Inn” they 
gave a dramatized version of the Prodigal Son, the 
dialogue and costume all their own preparation. The 
scene where the boy had lost all and as a beggar had 
hired himself to feed swine was most moving. Chou 


100 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


Shu De, the boy who has been teaching me Chinese, 
was the Prodigal, and he looked just like the beggars 
we see on the streets. It was a very cold night, cold 
in the church, yet he had on only the thinnest garments, 
with sacking tied about his shoulders, a beggar’s bowl 
in his hand, and his whole body shivered and his voice 
quavered as he crept about the stage. When he spoke 
the words of Luke’s gospel about his father, and what 
he would say when he returned it was a serious and 
dramatic moment. It brought tears to my eyes it was 
so realistic. The old father was dressed in long fur 
garments, and was out walking with his servant when 
the beggar came into sight. The old man’s sight was 
failing and as he shaded his eyes he asked his servant 
who it was. The servant replied—“Oh, just a yao 
fandi” (a “want-food man”—their expressive term for 
a beggar). But the beggar came closer and the father 
asked if it wasn’t his son. The servant said—“No; 
when your boy comes back from the far country he’ll 
be rich, an official or a big merchant”. Finally the son 
rushed up and fell before his father’s feet who raised 
him up enfolding him in his arms. And all this that I 
have described took place on a little platform—hardly 
ten feet long with no scenery at all. Yet it could hardly 
have been more dramatic with a wealth of properties 
and a full setting. The Chinese are born actors. They 
rivet attention on themselves and so need little scenery 
to make powerful the effect. 

You should have seen the crowd. Tickets were 
issued but we could hardly keep the people out even 
after the building was more than full. The large gate 
at the front of the compound had to be closed, but they 


CHRISTMAS IN CHINA 


101 


still tried to force their way in. We had to call in police 
assistance, and just as they came someone succeeded 
in breaking off a panel from the door and unlatching it. 
But the police were in time to hold back the rush. 

The Kaifeng station had dinner together at the 
Sallees. There were thirteen of us at the table. And 
we finished up with raspberry ice-cream, served in a 
bowl of ice frozen out of pure water. The weather was 
cold enough to freeze the water when it was set outside 
in a vessel. 

The church members gave us a reception when we 
moved in to the city. There were speeches of wel¬ 
come to which I had to reply in Chinese. But it is 
easier to make a speech in Chinese than to carry on a 
conversation, because you can use the vocabulary that 
you have and are not embarrassed by replies which are 
not understandable. We are anxious to make friends 
with the Chinese, and want them to feel at home with 
us, want them to be sure that we respect them as 
highly as we do the people of our own race—and we 
do. We know that we cannot do much good unless we 
can secure their friendship in the real sense. 

I am having Mr. Tung, the evangelist, come to the 
house on Sunday morning before the service, that we 
may pray together about the work. That will be the 
most difficult thing in the language—to pray, but we 
can get to know each other and he can be sure that I 
believe that we can do nothing without prayer. Later 
I hope that one or two others may meet with us for this 
purpose. They want me to make the talks at prayer 
meeting, and I shall try it a time or two to see whether 
it can be managed just yet. Then at Sunday School I 


102 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


shall try to make a five minute talk at the close of the 
lesson. Mr. Tung is not well educated and the congre¬ 
gation lessens when he preaches continuously, though 
he is an earnest man, and so you see how soon one is 
drawn into the work. 

THE POWER OF THE MOST HIGH NEEDED 

The Chinese need men who are able to teach them 
how to pray more than any other one thing—the 
Chinese churches need the infilling of the Spirit of God 
above all else. You won’t be here long before you 
will know that. And missionaries who have learned at 
Jesus’ feet in this great matter are needed terribly. 
One such missionary will be worth ten of any other 
kind, no matter how many scholastic degrees may have 
been secured. One reason that I have firm confidence 
that where John Anderson settles out here, things 
spiritual as well as physical will happen, whether he 
ever becomes fluent in the language is because I believe 
John has learned what it means to pray. The pitiful 
equipment that we have in the city has not moved my 
heart nearly so much as the thought—will we be able to 
help the Chinese into a life of real prayer. If they 
learn to pray the equipment will be supplied, and the 
Chinese will help in supplying it. There will be money 
to build churches but there is no use building a shell 
for a corpse. There are churches not a few in China 
(and China is not solitary in this fact) which only 
grow because of the pastor, if they grow at all, but if 
Christianity is ever to be a vital thing among the 
people themselves, it will be because the Chinese lay 
Christians are a spiritual flame of fire! Perhaps we 


CHRISTMAS IN CHINA 103 

missionaries have taught them to depend upon them¬ 
selves and just as surely fail. 

We must bring the best intellectual abilities, the 
widest knowledge and training into the missionary 
service of the present hour, but nothing appears so 
barren as these alone without the conscious presence of 
the living Christ. It is the Power not ourselves that 
accomplishes the work of the Kingdom. The presence 
and power of Jesus has been minimized of late in cer¬ 
tain intellectual and theological circles, but we depend 
on our wisdom and we fail. Nowadays we no longer 
display a theological intolerance or superiority that 
condemns others to perdition because their definitions 
differ from ours, but it can not but be apparent that a 
difference there always is in the results achieved where 
men live in the presence of the living Lord, and where 
they profess that religious experience is after all largely 
a matter of subjective psychology. That difference is 
seen in the light of the eyes of the men themselves, 
and also in the hearts of the men they touch. To walk 
with some men makes our hearts burn within us, with 
others we are led farther and farther into dreary and 
desolate intellectual wastes. “By their fruits ye shall 
know them”. 

The Chinese literati are proud of their ethics. Talk 
to them of Christianity and they constantly say—“Ah! 
it is the same as Confucianism —be a good man” If 
we have not the confidence to go behind our Christian 
ethics to our Christ, we can really do little for them. 
Christianity as an ethical system may be popularized 
in China through the praise that prominent Chinese are 
only too ready to accord the philanthropy of the mis- 


104 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


sionary enterprise. It may become too popular, before 
it is understood. As mere critical culture it will fail in 
China as surely as the “Christianity” of Germany 
failed. God send us men, missionaries and Chinese 
Christians, who have been caught up into the third 
heaven and have seen things unlawful to utter. Then 
we shall see the Kingdom coming in power. We do 
well at a day far too late to see the social message of 
the gospel, but Christianity has not failed because men 
have not seen their fellows, half so much as because 
men have not seen God. 


X 


A NEW YEAR AND NEW PROBLEMS 

THE CHINESE NEW YEAR 

It is now just two or three days before the Chinese 
New Year, their great holiday. They celebrate here 
in Kaifeng with more of the ancient fervor than in 
more modern Peking. The shops will all be closed for 
five days or longer, and the cook has been laying in 
supplies to-day for two weeks. We are going to enter¬ 
tain the members of the church this week, one day for 
the men and one for the women as we can’t have them 
together. On Thursday the men who manage the 
finances of the church were in for a committee meet¬ 
ing, getting acquainted. They stayed a little over an 
hour, Helen serving them tea and cakes before they 
left. I told them that there was a wall between the 
newly arrived foreigner and the Chinese that had no 
gate in it, that had to be torn down brick by brick. I 
proposed that they help me get rid of that wall; I to 
work at tearing down bricks by learning how to talk to 
them and being willing to learn from them; they by not 
being too polite to tell me my mistakes and helping me 
to learn Chinese ways of doing things. You can under¬ 
stand that I feel in a rather difficult position—made 
pastor of a Chinese church, not by their will, but by the 
will of foreigners. They call me “pastor” and I must 
105 


106 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


work to put real meaning into that term. I try to put 
myself in their place and imagine how it would feel in 
America to have a Chinese as my pastor, teaching me 
religion with a tongue that halted continually over the 
English words. 

More about New Year. Everything was closed up 
tight. The shop fronts were all shut up with shutters, 
so that the streets were for the most part blank wooden 
walls. No work of any kind went on. Just before New 
Year is the debt paying time. All old accounts are sup¬ 
posed to be cleaned up. Because of this a great many 
things can be bought cheaply as debtors need ready 
cash. It is a great time for the buying of real estate. 
The pawn shops have a busy time of it, crowded with 
people who have clothes or jewelry or what not and 
want to get ready money to pay up old scores. It is 
the time of the year for the paying of social calls. The 
rounds are made and red calling cards are left at the 
homes of friends. Pai nien, it is called—paying the 
New Year’s respects. The laws against gambling on 
the streets are in discard, and little knots of men are 
seen at intervals along the street throwing dice or play¬ 
ing other games of chance. New good-luck mottoes are 
pasted on the doors of shop and home. These are writ¬ 
ten usually on red paper—red being the color of fortune 
and happiness. On all sides are heard the popping of 
fire-crackers and the clanging of cymbals. The temple 
courts are crowded with holiday makers who find 
amusement in such places at the gambling devices, 
watching the magicians or theatricals, or listening to 
the professional story tellers. Worship also is specially 
in order at New Year. One of the chief religious cere- 


A NEW YEAR AND NEW PROBLEMS 107 


monies is connected with the kitchen god. It is said 
that he goes up to heaven at this time to report on the 
behavior of each family during the year. A rooster is 
purchased for him to make the heavenly journey upon, 
a sugar paste is put upon his lips in order that he may 
report only what is favorable, and he is escorted out of 
the house with the noise of fire-crackers. This god is 
represented in the homes by a paper poster bearing his 
picture, and usually that of his wife also. This is 
attached to a wooden board which is hung in the 
kitchen. In the ceremony of escorting this individual 
to heaven, a picture of him on a horse is burned, and 
a fresh picture is pasted over the one which has graced 
the kitchen during the year. The picture costs about 
two cents a copy, quite cheap for a god. 

During the New Year celebrations we usually have 
special evangelistic services which attract into the 
chapel the idle crowds. This year quite a number of 
the members gave their time in speaking and doing per¬ 
sonal work. One of our members, one of the best of 
them, used to be an actor, which is a low caste profes¬ 
sion in China. He was an opium smoker. He testified 
in one of the meetings telling of his conversion. What 
started him thinking was the way the Christians faced 
death in the Boxer massacres. He heard them declare 
to their murderers that they could kill their bodies but 
could not kill their souls. 

FACING DIFFICULT PROBLEMS 

The teacher of the school for girls on the compound 
was asked to resign some days ago by Miss Swann and 
it made him terribly angry. As I was going out to 


108 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


tennis he crossed the path of Miss Swann who was also 
on her way out and demanded her presence at an inter¬ 
view which he was going to have with me. He literally 
chased her as she kept on her way, but I detained him 
and took him into our sitting room where for an hour 
and a half I listened to his grievances and taking up one 
after another tried to settle his mind about them. He is 
not a Christian man—his age is about forty-five. He 
thought we were trying to cheat him out of money, 
thought that the money Miss Swann got for teaching 
English went to her pocket while she refused to add to 
his salary, and so on. But he finally told me that he 
thought my explanations were just. However, he still 
wears a cloud on his face. I hope he doesn’t feel any 
longer that there was no Christianity in our dealings 
with him; that was what he was saying as he came into 
the house—“Ah, this is some religion, this is some 
religion”. 

How many of our troubles are rooted in the money 
question. I have to pay the salaries of those who help 
us here; for example, $ 7.00 monthly to the man in the 
book-store, $ 11.00 to an evangelist, and so on. The 
scale of living has to be so simple to live on such 
salaries and you wish there was not such a disparity be¬ 
tween your salary and theirs, yet it is impossible for us 
to live on such wages and difficult to raise theirs when 
the money comes from America. If it were not for 
money, ah me! The problems of self-support and inde¬ 
pendence of church government are all involved here, 
and they cause us a lot of thought. I used to hold a 
slight reservation in my mind when I heard talk of the 
necessity of reaching the leaders, the higher classes in 


A NEW YEAR AND NEW PROBLEMS 109 


China. The reservation was due to the feeling that the 
emphasis on this idea might crowd out our insistence 
on the individual worth of every man, the highest and 
the lowest. But when you think of an independent 
church in China, you must remember that this means 
economic independence; people ground into the dust 
by physical poverty cannot support a church in any 
country. An independent church must also be intel¬ 
lectually independent and it cannot be so without men, 
fitted for intellectual leadership by a thorough educa¬ 
tion, no less than in America. As long as we are sure 
of our perennial need to preach individual transforma¬ 
tion by the power and work of Christ, we need not fear 
to say that our missionary task as far as we foreigners 
are concerned is largely an educational one: educa¬ 
tional in church as well as in school. We shall doubt¬ 
less always hold high our preaching services, but if we 
can organize Bible classes in small groups for the teach¬ 
ing of Christianity, and get in contact with young peo¬ 
ple in the school room every day instead of only once a 
week, it seems to me that missionary work will prosper 
most. We must train the Chinese to be preachers, and 
so we too must preach, but one sees more than ever that 
the work of evangelization must be accomplished by 
men whose tongues have always used the Chinese 
language, and whose expressions are the idioms of the 
East rather than the West. “China must be evangel¬ 
ized by the Chinese.” 

I have been talking at prayer meeting about how 
our church is to grow. Last Wednesday night as I was 
beginning, in walked Pastor Ding Li Mei, the great 
Chinese Christian, who is traveling for the Student 


110 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


Volunteer Movement of China. We had him speak a 
few words and lead us in prayer concerning his coming 
for a series of meetings. He is to speak to the church 
members and students at different times during the 
four or five days, and we are expecting a great blessing 
from his service. He had written a letter about his 
coming which I heard read at a preparatory committee 
meeting which was apostolic in its language, and so 
strangely real that a thrill went over me as I listened 
to it. He asked us to read Romans i: gff. It took on 
new meaning for his visit with us is very much like the 
coming of the Apostle Paul to the heathen city of 
Rome. That Christ has produced one man like Ding 
Li Mei in China is enough for us all to have given our 
lives to this land. 

THE CHINESE FESTIVAL—CHING MING 

Yesterday we had our first real rain since Anne was 
born, five months ago. Think of that for dry weather. 
The rain yesterday was not very heavy and we need 
still more. The Christians say that God holds back the 
rain because of the people’s sins. 

Last week the city was filled with country people, 
most of them women, who had come to burn incense at 
the city temples on the Ching Ming festival. The 
origin of this festival is probably unknown to most of 
them for they now consider the day a holy-day for the 
worship of ancestors, burning incense at the graves and 
in the temples. Originally the festival was ordered by 
one of the emperors in honor of a faithful official. It 
came about in this way. There was war between rival 
states before the unification of the empire, and the de- 


A NEW YEAR AND NEW PROBLEMS 111 


feated ruler was fleeing from the scene of battle. He 
had lost everything and was without food to sustain 
him. One of his loyal courtiers in devotion to his sov¬ 
ereign cut off some of the flesh of his own arm and had 
it prepared and sent to the emperor to stay his hunger. 
The emperor had inquired the source of the savory gift 
after he had partaken and was told the name of the 
official and what he had done. But strange to say after 
they reached home the official was forgotten in court 
and others were raised to prominence over his head. 
His friends urged him to petition the emperor remind¬ 
ing him of his services, but he refused absolutely, pre¬ 
ferring to be ignored rather than to call attention to 
forgetfulness and ingratitude on the part of his ruler. 
Instead of petitioning the emperor he took his old 
mother on his back and set off for a wild place in the 
mountains to be away from the associations of men. 
This he did in spite of the persuasion of his friends who 
told him that he was going to sure death either by 
starvation or by wild beasts. When he had gone, his 
friends took the matter to the emperor—told him the 
story of the faithfulness of the man—and the emperor 
remembering the deed with shame at his failure to re¬ 
ward his loyalty, sent messengers immediately to seek 
him. In this mission they failed for he was hidden 
away in some inaccessible place which they could not 
discover. So the emperor thought to drive the man out 
of hiding in the great forest that he might reward him 
before men. He had fires built along one side of the 
forest, sure that as the fire swept on over that place, the 
old courtier would come out to escape destruction. 
The fire burnt the trees and the brush of the hill com- 


112 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


pletely, but the old man never appeared. Soldiers, 
however, searching the burnt hillsides, came upon his 
charred corpse and the corpse of his mother. The 
Emperor was overwhelmed with remorse, and decreed 
a festival in his memory. This festival is the Ching 
Ming of the present day. 

It was an interesting but pitiful sight to see the 
groups of country women, clad in rough blue clothes, a 
handkerchief of coarse cloth upon their heads, hobbling 
along on their poor bound feet with the help of a staff. 
The groups were different village “huei” or associa¬ 
tions, and were led by men who carried flags with the 
name of the association. When we appeared on the 
street they were all eyes, nudging each other and point¬ 
ing at us and talking together about the strange for¬ 
eigners. We went up to the Lung Ting temple and saw 
them hobble up the long flights of stairs to bow before 
the idol at the summit. They come on foot sometimes 
as far as twenty or thirty miles, to throw a little cash in 
a basket before the Buddha, to burn sticks of incense 
before the squatting image. Their pilgrimage is used 
by our lady missionaries as an opportunity to invite 
them into the chapel to rest and drink tea and to tell 
them of Jesus who does not lay such heavy burdens 
upon women but who rests them from their weary 
loads. 

EXTRA PASTORAL LABORS 

Friday night one of the Chinese professors in the 
Higher Normal School of the Province who teaches 
English, came to call on me to ask me to speak at the 
commencement of the school. As the address was to be 


A NEW YEAR AND NEW PROBLEMS 113 


in English I accepted and that evening and next morn¬ 
ing collected my thoughts on the subject “The Teacher 
and China”. When I arrived at the appointed time, 
officials and faculty were lined up to receive His Ex¬ 
cellency, the Civil Governor of Honan. When he ar¬ 
rived with his retinue we marched to the assembly hall 
where the graduating class was assembled. They stood 
in military order in the center of the hall. There were 
no seats for them. They stood through the whole of 
the program. None of us sat down until the governor 
took the seat of honor at the front to the left of the 
room. The left side is always the honorable place. As 
the master of ceremonies made announcement, bows 
were made by various groups to the governor. He was 
a little fat man, with a gray mustache, about sixty-five 
years old. The principal of the school was the only 
man in the gathering who essayed to wear foreign 
clothes, and his adornment was limited as far as the 
foreign part was concerned to a derby hat, the crown of 
which was rather the worse for wear. He kept his hat 
on all the time except when he went to the platform to 
deliver a short address. I was interested to see how 
immobile the countenance of the governor was through¬ 
out the whole proceedings, even when complimentary 
remarks were addressed to him. You would nave 
thought that he did not understand a word that was 
said; I know he didn’t understand anything I said. It 
is an evidence of gentility to show no emotion what¬ 
ever. The young men wore black uniforms which were 
ill-fitting, but they’ll get there despite their clothes, I’ll 
warrant. At the close of the assembly we were ar¬ 
ranged for a photograph, the governor in the midst. As 


114 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


I departed, despite my polite protestations, the princi¬ 
pal and several members of the faculty escorted me to 
the front gate. This is a very necessary form but one 
must always protest against it as each succeeding gate 
is reached on the way to the street, insisting that the 
hosts go no further. But they go all the way despite 
the protests, declaring that after all they have enter¬ 
tained you but poorly. 


XI 


ON WITH THE WORK 

A REST AT CHEFOO 

Chefoo is on the North side of the Shantung penin¬ 
sula. Its Chinese name is Yen Tai. Names that are 
on the map resembling Chinese are sometimes the mis¬ 
taken attempts of first travelers to designate the 
places. There is a very pretty circular harbor with 
islands at the mouth. The mouth is big enough to 
drink in some pretty big waves and there was a rough 
time in the harbor last week when a big typhoon struck 
us. (Typhoon is taken from two Chinese words—da 
and feng—which mean big wind.) There was ap¬ 
proximately $ 80,000 worth of damage done to the 
breakwater and the bund. It almost swept away the 
latter. Surrounding the port are hills which are bare of 
trees except near their bases where there are fruit or¬ 
chards. Years ago one of the first missionaries in this 
region, Dr. Nevius, imported foreign fruit trees and as a 
result Chefoo is now a famous fruit shipping port for all 
of North China. The east end of Chefoo is settled by 
foreigners. A large part of this population is English, 
but there are also Russians, Italians, Dutch, Germans, 
Japanese, French, and Americans. There are French, 
German, English and Japanese Post Offices. This is 
one of the chief ports for the shipping of lace and 
115 


116 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


pongee silk, and boats come and go every day, cross¬ 
ing to Dalney, Port Arthur, Korea and Japan, and go¬ 
ing south to other Chinese ports and north to Tientsin. 

The summer is over and the summer residents are 
scattering back to their homes and their work. We 
were saying the other day that it will be good to get 
back home again, meaning our home in Kaifeng. Can 
you believe that our Chinese dwelling in the heart of 
the Chinese city is taking on that character? It really 
has become a home to us, as really as one could be in 
the United States. 

When we get back we are expecting to pitch into the 
work. Helen is as anxious as I am to be a real mis¬ 
sionary; she will take hold of the women’s work. It is 
proposed that this fall I take over the city work entire¬ 
ly, the preaching and the other duties. This week Dr. 
Zwemer of Arabia and Egypt has been giving us ad¬ 
dresses on work among Mohammedans. He visited 
Kaifeng this summer and has strengthened a determi¬ 
nation already forming in my heart to do my best for 
the Moslems that are around us. There are four or 
five mosques in close proximity to our chapel. 

I am on the S.S. Shun Tien (Propitious Weather), 
going down the China coast to Shanghai. We have 
just rounded the outer promontory of the Shantung 
Peninsula and are sailing southward in sight of the 
rugged shore which sometimes rises high enough to be 
dignified by the name mountainous—the color of the 
hills, a pinkish brown. We left Chefoo last night with 
the moon shining gloriously. The yellow lights of the 
houses on shore and the blinking harbor lights in the 
buoys and the light house made up a very pretty pic- 


ON WITH THE WORK 


117 


ture. We came down to the wharf in rickshas, an extra 
ricksha carrying a big basket full of jars and cans of 
preserves and fruit which the cook had put up for us. 
It also carried my pugai, a bundle quite Chinese, in 
which the major portion of my clothes were wrapped 
up. It consists of a ru tau or mattress cover, made 
of heavy canvas, with two compartments in which are 
usually packed bedding for a journey. It is made so 
that it can be thrown over a donkey’s back somewhat 
after the fashion of saddle-bags, and there is limit to 
what it will contain. When packed it is folded to¬ 
gether and tied up with a rope, often covered with a 
big oil cloth. In China we carry more baggage than in 
America; there are so many men who are around to lift 
it on board for you at two cents a package, be that 
package a hand bag or a trunk. 

The S.S. Shun Tien is very comfortable and finely 
appointed. There are perhaps thirty first cabin pas¬ 
sengers, most of them English. The boat itself is Eng¬ 
lish, run by Butterfield, Swire & Company, who have 
other interests in China beside transportation. Here 
we are on the coast of China in a boat not run by 
Chinese but by English officers of an English com¬ 
pany. One could hardly imagine an American firm 
running a coast line out here. The English are every¬ 
where. They surely are the greatest foreign traders 
in the world. The English firms are usually the big¬ 
gest in the port cities. Nearly all of us do banking 
through the British-Hongkong and Shanghai Banking 
Corporation which has branch offices in all the princi¬ 
pal open ports. We passed Wei Hai Wei last night, the 
English controlled port in North China. Hongkong 


118 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


is their Southern port. The English as you know are 
in charge of the Chinese Customs and of the Salt 
Gabelle. There are many Englishmen in the Chinese 
Post Office as Provincial Post Masters. I do not know 
if it be any sin that the English have so worked them¬ 
selves in out here. American business men are just 
waking up to the possibilities of foreign trade and are 
beginning to send representatives into China to search 
out openings. 


RECEIVING REINFORCEMENTS 

There has been no opportunity for letter writing 
since McNeill and Wilda arrived until now. Helen had 
a pretty poor time getting back to Kaifeng. The floods 
of the summer had interrupted direct railroad com¬ 
munication and so they had to make a long detour. 
Those floods have increased since then. Parts of Tient¬ 
sin are now twelve feet under water and from Paotingfu 
to Tientsin the country is like a great lake. The floods 
are the worst for fifty years. Fortunately for us at 
least, the break in the Yellow River was on the north 
side, and so we haven’t been washed away. The Han- 
kow-Peking Railroad line has been broken for about 
two months, with many bridges washed away. But 
what is others’ loss is our gain, for McNeill and Wilda 
must lengthen their visit with us instead of pushing on 
to Peking. 

I was in Shanghai just a day before they arrived. 
The steamer did not come up the river as ours did— 
the passengers were sent up on a large launch. Some 
friends and I were down at the wharf an hour before 
the boat came in. There was a great crowd straining 


ON WITH THE WORK 


119 


to get the first glimpse at the faces of the passengers as 
the launch finally steamed into sight. McNeill and 
Wilda were at the prow and soon I spied them. It 
was an exciting time. The place where they landed 
did not look much like China with hotels and office 
buildings several stories high, the fine automobiles and 
the street cars. 

Suffice it to say that we finally reached Kaifeng 
where all our missionaries were at the train to meet us, 
with the schoolboys who fired off crackers in welcome. 
That night we had our first meal together in China— 
the two families—think of it! The wonder and the 
happiness of it increases day by day. You can imagine 
how we have longed for the day which now we have. 
That was Wednesday, September 12 th, four days less 
than one month from the time they sailed from Van¬ 
couver. 

On the first Sunday he was here, McNeill preached 
and I translated for him. That evening I preached, 
and since then it has been the plan for me to preach at 
the Sunday morning service, for Mr. Sallee to preach 
at night, and for me to speak at the prayer meeting on 
Wednesday. 

We came back to find a lot of damage done by the 
rains. Several of the walls of the buildings had fallen 
in and the back wall of the compound was washed away 
except for its base. I have been superintending the 
masons in the necessary repairs. Most of the buildings 
are so old that it hurts me to put money into their re¬ 
pair, but we must have something to work in until we 
are able to build the church that we need. The paper 
windows of the chapel are all in shreds. I am having 


120 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


the front gate painted to put a bit of freshness into our 
outlook, and am tearing down some of the buildings 
and levelling off the ground rather than spend money 
to build them up again. We simply must have new 
buildings at once. One dreads to think of going thru 
another winter, but I suppose all things come slowly. 
Ours is the finest opportunity with the finest location 
for the work in the city, but ours is the most dilapi¬ 
dated looking place on Drum Tower Street. The 
Chinese have built new shops near us during the sum¬ 
mer which quite overshadow us, especially as one of 
the front buildings has a roof that has to be propped up 
from the outside to keep it from falling in. 

I had a man in to see me to-day who lives about 
forty miles from Kaifeng who said that he would pay 
the salary of a Christian school teacher if we would 
send one to his town. He has been a regular attendant 
lately and seems to be a man of some means. I have 
given him some Christian books and a Bible to read. 
Sunday a good part of the audience were educated men, 
many of whom I had never seen before. 

It was like Christmas when McNeill and Wilda be¬ 
gan to open up their trunks for they had suits for both 
of us and for Anne, and music, and books, and pillows 
and beautiful comforts from you. What busy skillful 
hands you have, what beautiful things you can do! 

IN THE MIDST OF THE WORK 

These past few weeks have been very busy ones. We 
have had quite a bit of repairing done and the place 
looks much improved. I have to supervise the repairs, 
and I spend a good deal of my time haggling with the 


ON WITH THE WORK 


121 


head workmen who usually ask two or three times as 
much money as the job is worth. Time seems nothing 
to them and it is quite a game to beat their prices down 
to reasonable levels. But they really do not expect me 
to give them as much as they ask at first. 

I have been trying to get the church organized for 
business. We had a business meeting about a month 
ago at which we discussed plans and organized com¬ 
mittees and I have been greatly encouraged by the 
enthusiasm shown. I have also had several long con¬ 
versations with inquirers. There is one man who has 
become very friendly. He is an official and has been 
in to talk with me three or four times. It is not very 
difficult to turn the conversation to religion. He is a 
regular attendant on Sunday mornings. Another 
young fellow, an employee in the Post Office, who has 
been unfailing in his regularity at the services came in 
with a relative of his who is a church member to see me 
the other night. He has a true, inquiring heart. He 
was influenced by a Chinese with whom he talked to 
make a more thorough inquiry and he says his heart 
has been touched, or “moved” as their expression is. I 
have also done a limited amount of calling. 

On Sundays I have been preaching to full houses. 
You can hardly imagine my sensations as I stand before 
that crowd, who know practically nothing of the re¬ 
ligion I am teaching. They are usually very attentive. 
I have been especially grateful at the regular at¬ 
tendance of a group of students. Last Sunday as I 
preached I felt a little embarrassed, because just be¬ 
fore I began, someone mocked the amen said at the 
close of the prayer and caused a snicker. I thought it 


122 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


was one of the students. But my young teacher who 
was with them told me after the service that they were 
greatly interested in the sermon, and one of them who 
previously refused to join a Bible class had that morn¬ 
ing done so, and said he was going to come regularly. 
I preached on the first message of Jesus to the people 
of Galilee—Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at 
hand. I tried to show them why China was failing 
morally—China has no motive deep enough to live by, 
for her concern is with things at hand only and there 
is no realization of God. Sunday night I preached on 
John 20 - 29 .—Can you believe in an unseen Jesus? We 
had a fine crowd. Wednesday night I tried to explain 
the boldness of Peter before the Sanhedrin: he was 
more conscious of an unseen and powerful Lord than 
he was of the men accusing him. The book of Acts be¬ 
comes new indeed as I try to unfold it to my Chinese 
audience—there are so many contemporary illustra¬ 
tions possible. For instance, Peter was accused be¬ 
cause he did a good deed to an impotent man. Just 
these last few weeks, Mr. Yung Tau, the rich man in 
Peking, who became a Christian last year, was thrown 
into jail by the jealous Confucianist who is the head of 
the police, because he had bought property formerly 
occupied by Buddhists for the purpose of establishing 
a school. 

On Fridays I am conducting a Normal group in the 
Sunday school lesson. We have a good number out 
each night. Instead of teaching a Sunday school class 
myself I am putting that in their hands, helping them 
prepare by this Normal class. Helen is finding her 
hands very full also with the Women and the Girls’ Day 


ON WITH THE WORK 


123 


School. But withal we find time for recreation. We 
have staked out four holes on a big parade ground to 
the south of the city and some of us have been playing 
a mild form of golf out there. Inside the city we have 
built tennis courts. There are some good tennis 
players in the community. 

So you can get an idea of what we are doing. We 
have our ups and downs, but the ups come often enough 
to keep our spirits hopeful. One of the downs has re¬ 
cently come. We have a church member of doubtful 
quality who has been a teacher in one of our day 
schools. I have been feeling for some time that when 
his pay was cut off from the church his interest here 
would go. It is about so. His mother is now at the 
point of death, and they are burning paper to the gods 
in the family as is the heathen custom. So we some¬ 
times gather in the tares with the wheat. The poverty 
of the majority of the people is really appalling and it 
is no wonder that food and raiment with difficulty be¬ 
come matters of secondary concern. This poverty is 
not irremediable, but natural resources have not been 
touched, large public works are not protected because 
of a dearth of public spirit and an inability to cooper¬ 
ate in any large way. Too often the head of a bank or 
of a newly organized stock company runs away with 
the money. The gospel is the only hope of a new day, 
for nothing short of a thorough regeneration of char¬ 
acter will save the country. Missionaries have a big 
job on their hands. 

The past week has been a mixture of all sorts of 
things. Last Saturday I refereed a football game at 
the Government Preparatory School. I left before the 


124 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


game was over to attend the Union Prayer meeting at 
which all the missionaries of the community gather to¬ 
gether. Sunday morning I preached on Jesus’ standard 
of values from the parable of the rich fool. In speak¬ 
ing from Sunday to Sunday, I feel so often that the 
burden of our task is not simply to get the people to 
decide on what is right or wrong, but de novo to create 
the standards in their minds by which they can make 
such judgments. We speak to those who for the most 
part have no Christian background. 

Monday night I was invited to a feast at a Chinese 
restaurant by Mr. Hsu. I have written of him as the 
man with whom I have had a good many conversations 
on Christianity. Personal work takes on a new com¬ 
plexion when dealing with such a man. He is not sat¬ 
isfied with what he has and is going hither and thither 
to find what will satisfy. The average Chinese, I 
should say, doesn’t know whether he is a Buddhist, a 
Taoist or a Confucianist, or what. His religious ideas 
are amorphous, a mass of superstition in which there 
are elements from the various systems. They are not 
versed in their own religions, rather they follow the 
practices of the fathers before them without inquiring 
why. The scholarly class are usually Confucianists— 
and religious in so far as ancestor worship is con¬ 
cerned. 


XII 


GREATNESS OF THE TASK 

FINDING STILL FURTHER PROBLEMS 

This week a young fellow, the son and grandson of 
prominent officials, has been in to see me about joining 
the church. He has had four years in St. John’s Col¬ 
lege in Shanghai and speaks very good English. His 
mother has opposed his becoming a Christian, though 
he has had that purpose for some time, because it would 
mean giving up ancestral worship, and the older people 
fear for their peace if they have no son to worship them 
after they are dead. But he has been talking to her 
constantly and recently she has given her consent to 
his being baptized. His uncle from Peking is now visit¬ 
ing them and is persuading his mother to withdraw her 
consent, on the ground that they will be separated in 
eternity if her son goes with the Christians. 

Tuesday night we had our monthly business meeting 
which we organized the month before. This time we 
added two new committees, one on examination for 
church membership, and one on care of property. The 
members are evincing a real interest in the work of the 
church and I am trying to make it so that each has 
something to do in the church. They on their part 
manifest the strivings of the Chinese for the democratic 
control of the church, i. e., control by them, and I have 
125 


126 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


to be very tactful to lead this proper impulse in the 
right channels lest they run amuck in a liberty which 
they do not perfectly understand. I am going on the 
principle that we should trust them very rapidly with 
the affairs of the church and so train them in church 
membership, but that financial support must precede 
financial control; that is, they are to control that part 
of the finances which they contribute. 

There are some of them who have a rather curious 
idea about us foreigners, that we are set to control as 
autocrats, and that they must work and scheme to get 
affairs out of our hands into theirs. The other night, 
the man who proposed the committee on church mem¬ 
bership suggested that all foreigners and those who 
received salaries at the hands of the foreigners be left 
off the committee, but I steered them past that rock, 
for the time being at least. That particular gentleman 
is peculiarly anti-foreign missionary. He used to have 
a job in connection with the church and was turned off 
for incompetency, and since then he seems to be trying 
to get back at the missionaries. He doesn’t know how 
much we desire the day when the Chinese here will be 
able to run things themselves, but he of all men is not 
capacitated. I think his spirit, however, does not char¬ 
acterize most of the members. I am undertaking to 
show them that I do not want to run things over them, 
or control them, and am trying to manifest an humble 
and friendly spirit. These things give you a hint of 
the kind of job a missionary has. The hardest thing 
in missionary life is this mutual misunderstanding, 
which grows out of the fact that you are not of the 
same race or the same tongue, no matter how free from 


GREATNESS OF THE TASK 


127. 


race prejudice you may be. It takes a good deal of 
patience but love must win out in the end. Our lives 
must be our chief message—I feel that more and more. 
We must give ourselves with our gospel. 

A young fellow who works in an inn near us has been 
coming to the services this past month, and has shown 
a deep interest in the gospel. But his manager warned 
him the other day that he must not pay any attention 
to that teaching, nor read his Bible which he recently 
purchased. The other night after the other men had 
gone to sleep, he stayed up and read his testament. 
The innkeeper woke up and caught him at it and so 
he is now out of a job, and that is no small matter to 
one who just makes enough money to buy his food. 
This innkeeper, I understand, has it in for us because 
we bought the property which he formerly rented and 
so caused him to move out. He was taking his spite 
out on the young fellow. 

How often I wish I could use English in the preach¬ 
ing services, instead of my limited Chinese. It would 
be so much easier to make things plain. But pro¬ 
ficiency is a long patient trail. Not only the language 
makes preaching difficult; there is the background of 
ignorance of Christianity which we face. References 
to commonplaces with us, bring no sign of recognition 
on the faces of most of the audience. One feels the 
necessity to explain over and over again the simplest 
things. But on the other hand, there is here also the 
romance of preaching which Silvester Horne writes of. 
The chief thing is not the form of the language one 
uses, it is the meaning, and after that comes the ques¬ 
tion of whether you can hold attention or not, keep 


128 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


the audience from going out while you are speaking. 
If you can hold their attention to the meaning of the 
message, think of the joy of facing an audience like 
Paul himself faced. Here before you are worshipers 
of idols; here are those who think the whole business 
of religion is pretty much of a farce, but who have 
never heard of the true religion; here are the idly curi¬ 
ous, “spending their times in nothing else, but either to 
tell or hear something new”; here are women who know 
very little of any joy at all, whose tongues can bite with 
cursing, whose minds are bound like their feet, and yet 
whose hearts are the hearts of the mothers of the world. 
Are they much more different do you imagine, from the 
Corinthians to whom Paul said “Be ye perfected, be 
comforted, be of the same mind, live in peace, and the 
God of love and peace shall be with you”. They are 
surely much like the Corinthians were before they 
received the gospel. And so too, they are sometimes 
like the Corinthians who received the gospel and after¬ 
wards called forth the fifth and sixth chapters of the 
First Letter. The New Testament is applicable 
throughout in the planting of a new church on non- 
Christian soil. 

What is the great trouble with China? Some would 
say poverty, but there is untold wealth in China, 
much of it hid in official families. It is said that Yuan 
Shih Kai put $ 30 , 000,000 in European banks when he 
saw that he would have to abdicate the throne. There 
are extremes of poverty because of hoarded wealth and 
undeveloped resources, caused largely by a lack of 
public spirit. Some would say ignorance, and there 


GREATNESS OF THE TASK 


129 


are millions of illiterates, but in positions of public re¬ 
sponsibility there are thousands who are heirs of 
Chinese civilization and culture which goes back thru 
the centuries and in addition are acquainted with the 
education of the West. The basic trouble is sin. And 
were it not for the promise of Jesus that the Holy 
Spirit would convict of sin, one would despair of arous¬ 
ing consciences which are used to evil as a matter of 
course, and consider such an attitude unchangeable be¬ 
cause such has been the condition in the past. Mr. 
Yung Tau said to me after he had suffered imprison¬ 
ment for buying Buddhist property to turn it into a 
school under Christian auspices—“My people have no 
sense of shame.” It is no disgrace to have three or four 
wives. Rather is one open to ridicule from fellow offi¬ 
cials if a raise in salary is not accompanied by the tak¬ 
ing of a new wife. One man was surprised to learn 
from me that the President of the United States has 
only one wife. President Yuan had nine, I believe. 

THE REAL MEASURE OF THE MISSIONARY’S TASK 

Three letters from you in the past two days. And 
already my spirits have felt the uplift of your love and 
interest in us and your great and deep devotion to the 
cause we are in. Sometimes the load presses so hard on 
one’s heart and mind, because we have to face not only 
the indifference and prejudice of the people here, but 
it looks as if it would be ages before the Christians at 
home really put their hearts into this work, and then— 
along comes a letter from Mother, telling of how she 
has been figuring on this and that plan for the awaken¬ 
ing of interest, and that she is praying day in and day 


130 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


out for us,—and up goes our courage, and we know 
that we shall get the victory some day. 

It is hard, this work we are doing. But no real per¬ 
son wants an easy job. The longer we live out here, 
the more we marvel at the courage and fortitude of the 
early missionaries. Our lot must be ease indeed com¬ 
pared to what they had to stand. I fear I used to think 
that all China was hungering and thirsting for the 
gospel, but when every day that we go on to the streets 
we hear the children call after us “foreign devil”, when 
it is a saying that Christianity is a devil religion be¬ 
cause it is brought by foreign devils, when a tract 
given out at the chapel door is torn in two before the 
man who gave it, I begin to realize that the human 
heart is much the same the world around, and that 
though the gospel is the greatest gift ever given to man, 
there are many who think they do not want it. Of 
course, we remember that we are in a comparatively 
new field, and that means that there are few Christians 
who give back to you in a rebound the life that you 
are giving out to them. In the first stage of missionary 
work, one must be wary lest the person who is seeking 
to join the church is really after a job. There are “rice 
Christians” who come for a while and when they do not 
secure the job sought, they drop off and come no more, 
but that kind of person is not confined to China. And 
we must not judge too harshly these who are crushed 
by economic necessity, and who grab at any straw 
that comes along. When one goes to cities where the 
work is of long standing, the character and enthusiasm 
and intelligence of the Chinese Christians assures one 
that missions count. And think of the Boxer martyrs. 


GREATNESS OF THE TASK 


131 


Men just out of heathendom are not apt to be per¬ 
fect saints. As they come into the church they do not 
cast off entirely the shadows of the darkness out of 
which they come. One has to be reminded constantly 
that after all they are children and not full-grown in 
Christ. This is, of course, most true of the uneducated 
men and women. I fear we sometimes demand of 
them standards higher than those in the churches at 
home and then are downcast because they do not reach 
those standards immediately. Christians in America 
have been known to quarrel, or to fall into dishonest 
and questionable practices. Now all this means that it 
is slow, hard, and sometimes discouraging business, 
this being a missionary. It must of necessity be slower 
work than that of the early apostles and Paul. They 
were a part of the civilization they were evangelizing, 
and the energy of Paul’s thoughts was not bound by an 
un familiar language. They knew the thought and so¬ 
cial customs of Greece and Rome, while pioneering 
missionaries in China must learn these things through 
long study and contact. On the other hand, we have a 
much larger body of Christians behind us and the 
world is open as never before. Much of our work must 
be educational evangelism, the taking of plastic minds 
and molding them by constant instruction in the truth. 
A woman like Dr. Mary Stone is the product of much 
painstaking nurture on the part of missionaries, from 
childhood up. In America, it is easy to forget how 
much of the warp and woof of the life of the nation is 
Christian in origin. Here the fabric of life for the 
majority of the people is woven of superstition, idolatry 
and evil. This is not to say that individual Chinese are 


132 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


worse than individual Americans who are not Chris¬ 
tian. There are high moral ideals here and they are 
embodied at times in the lives of men here and there. 

This is a brief sketch of what constitutes our task. 
How are we to meet our responsibilities? We must 
destroy prejudice, we must create respect, and then we 
must win to Christ, and that in itself is not the work of 
a few minutes. You cannot tell a man to believe in 
Christ, when he does not even know who he is. Christ 
himself did not call for the great confession until his 
disciples had been with him two years. There are still 
many Chinese who think that the missionaries are 
political emissaries. They have received the impres¬ 
sion from some of the things they have heard that mis¬ 
sionaries have come to overthrow their social organiza¬ 
tion, and take away from them that which they hold 
most dear. Our approach must be tactful, remember¬ 
ing the words of our Lord, “I am come not to destroy, 
but to fulfill.” Mr. Robert E. Speer has recently re¬ 
marked that perhaps we have made a mistake in our 
missionary work in not using those social and practical 
approaches to non-Christian peoples, which are most 
easily understood, as fully as we might in introducing 
Jesus Christ to them. We are planning to do our work 
in this great city along institutional lines: for example, 
night schools for uneducated, day schools and kinder¬ 
garten for children, classes for women, free dispensary, 
reading rooms and book-store, educational lectures, and 
so on, the whole work creating an opportunity for 
evangelization and the production of the practical 
fruits of Christianity. Jesus attracted folks. He 


GREATNESS OF THE TASK 


133 


healed them and helped them, and then chose his dis¬ 
ciples from the crowd by laying down the spiritual re¬ 
quirements of his Kingdom. 

CHINA REQUIRES TIME 

Last week two men who live in Pochow which is 
about one hundred and fifty miles across the border of 
Honan into Anhuei, wheeled their respective daughters 
in barrows for six days thru the country to Kaifeng, 
to enter them in the Girls’ School. The last day of 
travel was thru a fierce dust storm. They took one 
dollar’s worth of books from the store here to sell on 
the way back to make money to pay for their food. 
The books were gospels and tracts, selling for a penny 
or two apiece. The men are members of the church 
in Pochow. 

Recently a group of women went to the Governor’s 
yamen and appealed on behalf of the poor who are in 
particular distress because of the advance in living 
costs and the unfavorable exchange on the dollar. As 
a result, the head of the Honan bank was put in jail for 
manipulating the cash reserve. Some say his house and 
effects were attached. In his home were discovered 
evidence that he had been smoking opium. It does not 
take long to go thru a fortune if that habit is fastened 
on an individual. With the prohibition of opium, that 
article is only secured at a premium. The silver dollar 
has been changing for as much as one hundred and 
eighty paper cents. That is, that much paper money 
must be given to equal one silver dollar. Day labor is 
all paid in paper money, and as this paper is not backed 
by real cash, the specie having been extracted by the 


134 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


head of the bank, much distress has resulted, for there 
has been no advance in wages. 

My friend, Mr. Yuan, left to-day to take up his post 
as Mandarin in the Chi Yuan district, north of the 
river. I went to the railroad station to see him off, an 
essential point of etiquette in this land. He has been 
most friendly. The other day he took me in a Peking 
cart to the match factory in the suburbs, to inspect the 
plant. This factory has a gold medal from the Panama 
Exposition. Mr. Yuan was acquainted there and after 
we had been thru the factory, we were invited to lunch 
with the superintendent. It was an opportunity to get 
acquainted with some men, and also to have conversa¬ 
tion with Mr. Yuan going and coming. We talked 
about Jesus, and he asked how men in China could be 
persuaded to believe. He has told me that he is willing 
for God to come into his life, and that he hopes his 
heart will be moved. I presented him with a well- 
bound Bible and he has agreed to read it regularly. 

This friendship with Mr. Yuan Chang came about 
in a singular way. He is the oldest son of Yuan 
Chang, who held the high office of Director-general 
of the Court of Sacrificial Worship, and a Vice- 
presidency of the Foreign office under the Empress 
Dowager, and who was executed by order of the 
Empress because he with three other men dared to 
change her edict in the Boxer days from “Destroy 
all the foreigners”, to “Protect all the foreigners”. 
One Wednesday night this last winter as I was talk¬ 
ing to a group of people in our chapel, a man of un¬ 
usual appearance came quietly in and took a seat near 
the middle of the room. He attracted my attention 


GREATNESS OF THE TASK 


135 


because, although he was not old, he wore a beard, a 
kind of black fringe under his chin, with no mustache. 
He was well dressed and he was wearing dark colored 
glasses. When the service was about half over, he rose 
and went to the door. I supposed that he was leaving, 
as many do who wander idly in, listen a short while and 
then pass on. But no, he only closed the door against 
the cold air which sweeps through our little paper 
windowed chapel, and returned to his seat to hear me 
through. This made me the more determined to have 
a word with him at the close of the service, but as we 
dismissed I was detained at the front by a church mem¬ 
ber, and he passed out into the night. Others had re¬ 
marked his appearance and singular action in closing 
the door, but none knew who he was or whence he had 
come. 

You may imagine my pleasure when I saw him come 
into the chapel again on Sunday morning. He had 
been interested enough to want to hear the gospel again. 
This time I reached him before the crowd had scat¬ 
tered and asked him his “honorable name”. He 
lingered for Sunday school and again appeared at the 
evening service. After that service I invited him into 
our home. For an hour or more we talked together. 
I showed him some verses in the sermon on the Mount 
—how Jesus said that he had not come to destroy but 
to fulfill, that what truth Confucius taught was not to 
be swept away by Christ, but to be fulfilled by him. 
The next Sunday he was at dinner with us, and after the 
meal we talked about a book which I had given him 
earlier, a book about the existence of God. 

Thus our acquaintance began and continued. I 


136 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


called on him at his hotel, the hotel right next door to 
us. He returned my call. He told me that his sister 
was a Christian and a teacher in a mission school, but 
that he had not paid any particular attention to the 
gospel. He had come in that first night attracted by 
the sound of the singing which came thru the wall 
from our chapel into the inn. He was in Kaifeng 
waiting appointment by the governor to some official 
vacancy. 

Two or three days before he left to take up his office, 
he invited me to be one of a group of friends in a pho¬ 
tograph. Most of them I had not seen before. He 
invited them all in my presence to come to our chapel, 
and I heard him remark to one of them: “What does 
Confucianism mean to our country now? Who knows 
what it teaches? No one goes around preaching it. 
But look at this Christian religion, how enthusiastically 
its followers seek to spread its influence.” He also said: 
“Buddhism teaches .that life is vanity. According to 
their proverb life is as unreal as the flowers reflected 
in a mirror, or the moon reflected in the water. Con¬ 
fucianism says that this life has meaning; that it is not 
finished until death.” I remarked: “Jesus says that 
life also has meaning after death.” “Ah! that means 
that Christianity goes a step further to perfection be¬ 
yond Confucianism”, was his reply. 

A few years ago, such men as these would not have 
deigned to have anything to do with the heralds of the 
Christian religion. Think of what it will mean for 
China, when the leaders, the men of influence, and 
education are won for Jesus Christ. 

Mr. Li, a pastor of the China Inland Mission, spoke 


GREATNESS OF THE TASK 


137 


twice at our church recently. I was at dinner with him 
one day and we were discussing the progress of Chris¬ 
tianity in the Orient. We spoke of the extraordinary 
progress of the gospel in Korea, and wondered why 
China did not seem to wake up that way. Was it the 
fault of our methods or what? He said that he had 
visited Korea and had been in nearly all the Chinese 
provinces. This was his observation—the Chinese do 
not change easily. It takes them a long time to come 
around to a new thing. But when they once do change, 
they are not thereafter easily shaken. He illustrated it 
by the hold that Buddhism, an imported religion, has 
on so many of the people. When they had once taken 
to that religion it struck in deep and they still cling to 
it tenaciously. It looks as if the Chinese when they do 
become Christian are going to exhibit qualities of 
patience and steadfastness in a way to make us wonder. 

There are Chinese customs which appear ridiculous 
at first sight which on longer acquaintance exhibit rea¬ 
sonableness not immediately apparent to the hurrying 
Westerner. It is not safe to criticize things Chinese 
too quickly. In the end the laugh may be on us. 
Richard Washburn Child wrote articles in Collier’s not 
long ago after a hurried trip through China in which he 
told just how to manage this dirty, slow country. The 
longer I stay here the more I become convinced that 
the Chinese are going to do things their own way, 
socially, politically, ecclesiastically. They will not be 
mere imitators. You perhaps have heard of the mis¬ 
sionary who wanted as the epitaph of his tomb the 
words—Here Lies the Man Who Died Trying to 
Hustle the East. 


138 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


We ran on a snag in our church business meeting a 
while ago, and the differences of opinion had about fin¬ 
ished us. I called on Mr. Chao, one of our best edu¬ 
cated members, and asked him what he thought I ought 
to do about it. He replied by calling my attention to 
the political situation in China. Look at the unseemly 
conduct of parliament. Yuan Shi Kai had dissolved it 
because it was so unruly and useless, then Li Yuan 
Hung had opened it again when he went to the presi¬ 
dency. And now the last president, Feng Kuo Chang 
has turned it out again. They do not know how to 
govern themselves as yet. The opinion of the country 
concerning the republic is divided. The Southern 
party thinks it possible to establish a republic like 
America here and now. The Northern party thinks 
that the country is not yet capable of governing itself 
and that full republican forms and institutions cannot 
be established until the people are educated up to 
them. Both favor a republic but their methods of at¬ 
taining that goal are unlike. “Now,” said Chao, “our 
church is like China in miniature, and I do not think 
that full democratic forms can be established until they 
understand more fully just what it means to be a citi¬ 
zen of the Kingdom!” As to my position, which was 
an extremely delicate one, between two fires as it were, 
he said: “When a ruler in China gets into a bad way, 
he usually appears before his officials and takes all the 
blame for the mismanagement of affairs on his own 
shoulders. I suggest that you take the entire blame for 
the failure of the business meeting upon yourself be¬ 
fore the next meeting of the members.” This kind of 
a procedure quite common in the government, I had 


GREATNESS OF THE TASK 


139 


laughed at as being insincere and hypocritical, when I 
first noticed it in reports in the papers. But I could 
now understand its psychology, and with all sincerity 
I followed out his advice, confessing my faults before 
the meeting, telling them that instead of beginning on a 
business meeting to develop the activities of the church, 
I should have started with a prayer-meeting to prepare 
us for service. I had been told that a group of the 
members were prepared to make a disturbance that 
night, but they all filed out rather solemnly at the close 
of the service, and no one has come since to question 
whether my action was correct or not. 

BUILDING THE HOME LIFE IN CHINA 

To-day is Mother’s Day, and though I think of you 
every day yet this day you have been specially in my 
thoughts. Particularly as I preached at the morning 
service to a full crowd of men and women. My 
thoughts in that sermon centered chiefly on my home, 
my Christian home—father, mother, brothers and 
sisters. The wonder of that home is accentuated in 
contrast with the homes around us here, very few of 
which are worthy of the name home in the best sense, 
for what is a home without Jesus in the midst. 

I tried to tell them what a Christian home is. I 
mentioned some of the enemies of home life, con¬ 
cubinage, which is very common, inequality of men 
and women, early marriages, the slavery of the daugh¬ 
ter-in-law to the mother-in-law, carelessness of parents 
about the moral well-being of their children, or of the 
example they set before them. I illustrated what ought 
to be true of a home by telling them of family prayers 


140 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


in our home, and of discipline based on the Bible. Of 
course, I could not tell the whole story and at times was 
a bit confused as to just the right words to use, but I 
hope some higher vision was given them. If some of 
them could be transported in the spirit into an Amer¬ 
ican Christian home, their first comment would prob¬ 
ably be—Well, this is heaven! 

We are going to try to have such a home in their 
midst, but the strongest testimony will be borne when 
Chinese Christians themselves manifest in their homes 
the true spirit of Christ. I tell them every now and 
then that I am trying to pass on to them some of the 
blessings that I have received through my home. 


XIII 


THE IMPACT OF CHRISTIANITY 

china’s political plight 

China is in a bad plight. The military establishment 
is sucking the blood out of the people. The soldiers 
would be useless in repelling a foreign invasion, and 
now are little more than brigands at heart, ready to 
loot their fellow countrymen at the slightest excuse. 
Foreign loans are constantly contracted, the largest 
part of which goes to pay the soldiers. Unless they are 
paid there is constant fear that they will break loose 
and plunder the country. I understand that it costs 
twelve million dollars a day to care for the military. 
The governors of the Northern provinces are military, 
not civil, and hold office by the power of their private 
armies, not by the suffrage of the people. The differ¬ 
ent governors are banded in a clique of the governors 
and the militarists of Japan, for much of the money 
which goes to pay the soldiers is borrowed from the 
government of Japan on mortgages placed on China’s 
resources and railroads. Conditions are worse than 
under the Manchus, so many of the old citizens say. 

Man’s extremity is God’s opportunity and un¬ 
doubtedly, the willingness of many Chinese to listen to 
the gospel arises from their realization of their helpless 
condition as a nation. It is interesting to hear men of 
141 


142 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


the educated class who formerly were bitterly opposed 
to Christianity, say that the opposition of China to the 
gospel came from the unlettered, who did not know 
anything about the world. I have heard this remark 
made in all seriousness more than once, the inference 
being that the educated class has always known that 
Christianity was a good thing for China. Despair has 
settled upon the minds of many of the Chinese, but to 
those of us who hope in the Lord, there is the promise 
of a better day. Only Christ can save this land, be¬ 
cause he alone can produce the character that is essen¬ 
tial to progress and peace. 

I have preached several times from Jeremiah, for he 
was addressing in his generation a situation very 
similar to that in China, a nation hardened in sin and 
shamelessness in whom the sentence of destruction was 
written. “Thou hadst a harlot’s forehead, thou re- 
fusedst to be ashamed”, says Jeremiah. Yung Tau, the 
Chinese Christian philanthropist who was thrown into 
jail in Peking this spring because of his activities 
against concubinage (the technical charge was that he 
had bought Buddhist property to turn into a school), 
told me on the train since his release, that the officials 
in Peking did not know shame. Thirty-thousand 
bandits are reported to be roaming over Shantung ter¬ 
rorizing the population. Kidnapping is common— 
even foreigners having suffered at the hands of these 
robbers. Country people have in some places aban¬ 
doned their villages and fled to walled cities for protec¬ 
tion. The recent elections were disgraceful—the sale 
of votes for large sums going on publicly. When a new 
set of officials ride into office, nepotism is unabashed. 


THE IMPACT OF CHRISTIANITY 143 


Relatives bob up on every hand to take their sinecures 
in the glorious government of the land. An opium 
smoker who has spent all his living riotously, with 
whom I have had relations in an effort to save him from 
his evil habit, has recently gone to Peking to look for a 
job, because, forsooth, the new president is a relative. 

In T. R. Glover’s Conflict of Religions in the 
Roman Empire —there is a description of conditions in 
Rome remarkably like present conditions in China. 
For example: governmental decline and disintegration; 
feeble attempts to remedy unsuccessful; the decline 
connected largely with the removal of the old religious 
bases of morality, loss of faith and fear in the gods; 
the indifference of most of the educated to religion 
though they endeavored to resuscitate religious beliefs 
among the common people for the sake of governmental 
purposes (cf. recent attempt in China to make Con¬ 
fucianism the state religion); the common people held 
in the fetters of superstition, exercising their vague 
religious feelings in ways they could not explain except 
on the basis of custom—our forefathers did so. That 
is the picture of Rome when Christ came into the 
world, and it is almost identical with China in this year 
of our Lord. Christianity outthought and outlived 
the religions of Rome, and we believe will outthink 
and outlive the religions of China. 

Paul’s attitude toward Christ and the disciples before 
he was converted and the attitude of the Chinese literati 
are strikingly similar. Paul opposed Jesus because he 
appeared to be overthrowing the ancient doctrines, be¬ 
cause he made himself greater than Moses, and because 
he made himself equal with God. The Confucianist 


144 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


opposition is along the same line: Jesus is an outsider 
come to overthrow the doctrines of three milleniums, 
who is declared to be greater than Confucius and claims 
to be divine. Put Jesus on the same plane with Con¬ 
fucius and little is said against him. Indeed a portrait 
representing him is placed along with that of Con¬ 
fucius, Mencius, Mohammed and Buddha in the lec¬ 
ture hall of the model prison in Peking. It is common 
to hear speeches nowadays on ethics and virtue in 
which Christ is placed in the gallery of the sages, equal 
but not higher than the rest. But Christ among the 
philosophers makes no supreme demand on the con¬ 
science or will, his teaching can be accepted or rejected 
without consequence. The Empress Dowager in 1907 
declared Confucius to rank with Heaven and Earth— 
this being her reply to the Western deification of 
Jesus. The divinity of Christ is as real a problem to 
the literati as it was to Paul. Paul (Saul) persecuted 
the disciples because in their popular movement he saw 
the overthrow of his religion and the established order, 
and as a patriot and religionist he felt his obligation to 
crush this movement in its incipiency. The scholars of 
China, especially a few years ago, recognized in the 
Christian movement the possibility of the overthrow 
of the old order whose perpetuation is their responsi¬ 
bility. 

Why did Saul, the violent harrier of the early Chris¬ 
tians, change to Paul the Apostle? First, because he 
was affected by the strange fortitude of the Christians 
under persecution. Second, because he discovered 
that he was not opposing a heretical doctrine as he sup¬ 
posed, but a divine person. Compare “I persecuted 


THE IMPACT OF CHRISTIANITY 145 


this Way”—“Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” 
(Way and doctrine are the same word in the Chinese 
version.) This change in Paul is typical of the changed 
attitude of many Chinese in this new day. They were 
astonished at the courage of the martyrs of the Boxer 
days, and they have discovered that Christianity is not 
so much a new foreign doctrine as the revelation 
through Christ of the possibility of a new personal re¬ 
lationship with God. And nothing less than this dis¬ 
covery can revolutionize the lives of Chinese who like 
the Greeks seek after wisdom and stumble at the Cross. 
Life in the Orient is a good theological tonic. Come out 
here with Unitarian philosophy, whose ethical culture 
is so much akin to the morals of Confucianism, and see 
how futile it is when it comes to grips with rotten sin. 
Only a divine Saviour has meaning in such a situation, 
and only a divine Saviour availed in the First Century 
where a similar situation was faced. Unitarianism can 
only live in a land where the influence and power of 
the Son of God have been felt thru generations. It is 
essentially parasitic in its life. Like the mistletoe, it 
would perish but for the oak. 

LEARNING FROM GREAT CHRISTIANS 

I left Peitaiho, the summer resort, on the 15 th of 
August and was home for the services on Sunday. It 
was a delight to see the rich crops along the railroad, 
a full year following a very scant preceding year. The 
kao liang was luxurious. This is a Chinese grain not 
known in America, the stalks growing sometimes as tall 
as eighteen feet. The name means “tall grain”. The 
Chinese are most careful farmers and the fields were in 


146 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


beautiful order. Thirty or forty miles away to the 
west of the railroad runs a line of mountains almost 
the whole length of the journey. To the west of these 
mountains lies the province of Shansi, the name mean¬ 
ing west of the mountains. What is lacking in the 
landscape are the trim homes and good roads and oc¬ 
casional modern cities, for the farmers are all grouped 
in villages surrounded by mud walls and the cities all 
have the marks of antiquity upon their gray brick em- 
battlements. Still there is not a little natural beauty 
in the countryside, and the fresh observer finds much 
of interest in the looks of people and place. Most of 
the farmers work naked to the waist, and so their skin 
is tanned very dark by the hot summer sun. The fields 
are guarded at night by men who sleep in little mat 
shelters. In the kao liang fields these booths are 
raised on high poles so that the watchman may over¬ 
look the crop. 

A week after returning from Peitaiho I went north 
of the Yellow River to Huei Hsien to attend the first 
student conference of Honan. We met in a park 
called Bai Chuan, or The Hundred Springs. It is in 
the midst of hills that rise into a tall range of moun¬ 
tains whose steep sides are blue in the distance. There 
are temples and pavilions scattered profusely about on 
the sides of the hills and around a great pool which is 
enclosed in heavy masonry. This pool is oblong, ap¬ 
proximately three hundred by one hundred and seventy 
yards in dimension. Myriad springs bubble up in its 
sands and at the upper end the pure crystal water 
rushes out from under the edge of the hill in several 
sparkling streams. The water is crowded with small 


THE IMPACT OF CHRISTIANITY 147, 

fish and on the surface float graceful ducks. At the 
lower end is a two story tea pavilion, reached by a 
stone bridge. The walk to the bridge passes through a 
garden of flowers which were then in gorgeous bloom. 
Our daily meetings were held in the upper room of this 
pavilion, overlooking the beautiful water. Ancient fir 
trees, bent into abnormal shapes, surround the place. 
There is a large temple dedicated to the dragon-god, 
who is supposed to control the water sources and the 
rain. The door of the temple is guarded by two 
enormous figures with fierce faces and with eyes in 
their stomachs, and feet a foot broad. The student dele¬ 
gates slept and ate in this temple, and several times the 
vesper services were held in the courtyard under the 
shadow of the wide-sweeping eaves. The boys hung 
their clothes on the arms of attendant idols. Without 
doubt the fathers of many of them had bowed before 
just such images in worship. There were only two 
priests in the temple. The park itself is kept by an 
octogenarian whose fine head and sparse white beard 
reminded one of the portraits of the ancient sages. 

The foreign leaders of the conference had their 
quarters in a small ancestral shrine off to the east 
of the pool. There were no images in this shrine, 
only a simple tablet on an altar, which served us as a 
shelf on which to place our eating utensils. There were 
too many mosquitoes about for comfort so several of us 
took our cots to the top of the hill overlooking the 
springs. Several nights we slept in a golden roofed 
octagonal pavilion, in which was a great stone tablet, 
inscribed with a memorial of an emperor. We ended 
by sleeping on the flat roof of a temple still higher 


148 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


up. This was a kind of observatory with a fine outlook 
toward the mountains. Over our heads were the stars 
of a Chinese summer night. We rose each morning as 
the sun began to color the East. Three hundred stone 
steps led down to the pool from our resting place. 
Through the arches that stood over these steps the 
water of the pool appeared as a great mirror as we 
descended to break our fast. Off on the hills nearby 
shepherds kept their flocks. Great stone lions had 
guarded us while we slept. 

All over the park there are stone tablets set up on 
which are inscriptions written by famous men. The 
Chinese are lovers of fine chirography, as might be ex¬ 
pected when we see their difficult hieroglyphs. The in¬ 
scriptions are first written by scholars on paper and 
then are stenciled on to the stones, and then cut by 
masons. There were men at work on new inscriptions 
while we were there. Pilgrims to this famous place 
take away rubbings of the inscriptions as mementoes 
Former President Yuan Shi Kai was fond of this place 
and there are some new stones which contain some of 
his handwriting. Some of the oldest tablets have the 
characters of emperors, but these are indistinct with 
age. In a temple to Confucius which commemorates 
his visit here over two thousand years ago there is a 
drawing of the sage by a famous artist cut in stone. 
In halls on either side of this temple are seated figures 
of his disciples, done in clay. In the temple is one of 
the rare images of Confucius himself, the face colored 
a dark brown. The tradition is that the sage was quite 
homely. 

But I have as yet told little of the Conference which 


THE IMPACT OF CHRISTIANITY 149 


we held for a week at the Springs. There was only a 
small group of students, not quite sixty in all, as the 
delegations were limited to Christian students. There 
was the true conference flavor, fun and serious thought 
mixed in right proportions, and the testimonies of the 
boys on the last night showed that they had received 
much benefit. Most of the invited Chinese leaders 
failed to arrive owing to flood breaks in the railroad 
connections. But Col. Chao Yu Chin of Shansi who 
was scheduled for a talk on Monday came for the 
whole conference instead, having secured a two weeks’ 
leave from the Governor to whom he is attached as an 
Aide-de-Camp. As it turned out we found in him just 
what was needed to make the conference a success. 
Instead of one speech he made three and led a Bible 
class besides. 

One of the addresses was the story of how he had 
become a Christian. He held our attention for nearly 
three hours of laughter and tears as we listened to 
that remarkable recital. He became a Christian about 
seven years ago during his service against Mongolian 
bandits on the border. Up to that time he had resisted 
more or less vigorously all efforts to bring him to belief 
in Christ. As a little boy in a market place a mis¬ 
sionary had given him a Bible, but his teacher had 
thrown it away in great anger when he discovered it in 
his desk. He used to go to the mission chapel when 
he was a student in military school to hear the singing 
of the hymns, but he never stayed when they began 
to preach. He even held a kind of spite against all 
Christians, which one day he was able to manifest 
against an old hospital worker by running into him 


150 


HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


from behind on a bicycle. But up on the Mongolian 
frontier his wife fell desperately ill, and he had no 
where to turn but to a little mission chapel nearby. 
Like many of the people he connected medical treat¬ 
ment as being inevitably a part of the equipment of 
mission chapels. But there was only an old Chinese 
evangelist at the chapel who said he knew no medicine. 
“However,” said the evangelist, “I know the Great 
Physician and can pray to Him for you if you will 
believe in Him and kneel with me.” The prayer of 
faith did heal the sick. Col. Chao’s wife recovered, 
and together they vowed to follow Christ. The vow 
was not fulfilled for some time. He grew cold toward 
the matter and his wife ridiculed the idea. 

At a later date the troops he was commanding were 
surrounded and besieged by the Mongolians, and it 
was not long before they were in serious straits, with 
little or no food. As Col. Chao sat in his tent one day, 
a peasant wandered by and looked in. The guard, 
however, drove him away. Thinking it quite strange 
that a man should venture into such a place at such a 
time, Col. Chao came out and had the man recalled. 
“Why did you come around here?” queried the Colonel. 

“I heard you were in distress and I have brought you 
a little present of food,” replied the peasant. 

“But are you not afraid while we are in such a dan¬ 
gerous position?” 

“No,” said the man, “the only thing I fear is sin. 
In my Father’s hands I am as safe here as anywhere.” 

What a strange person, thought Col. Chao, to bring 
me, an utter stranger, a present of food, and what a 
strange reply to give to my questions. But in further 


THE IMPACT OF CHRISTIANITY 151 


conversation he learned that the man was a Chris¬ 
tian, and later he returned bringing his Bible with him, 
which he also presented to the officer. The experience 
was startling, and it recalled the former vow made in 
a time of trouble, and upon a successful deliverance 
some time after, Col. Chao resolved again to connect 
himself with the Christians. 

The first chance he had he went to a mission chapel 
to worship. But the service disgusted him, for the 
room was very close and the only other worshipers 
were not officials like himself, but day laborers, whose 
unwashed bodies made the odors of the room most un¬ 
pleasant. If he had to stand that kind of a thing, no 
more Christianity for him. Two weeks later in a 
thoughtful mood, it suddenly flashed upon him: Why 
should you hesitate to connect yourself with a group 
like that when a foreign missionary, who doubtless has 
as keen sensibilities, and who came from a land of 
culture and refinement, kept not himself back from 
ministering to those laborers? Should you do less with 
your own fellow-countrymen? It was the conviction 
of the Holy Spirit, so he said, and from that time he 
went forward to know and to do the will of the Lord. 

Col. Chao’s faith in prayer is very simple, his de¬ 
pendence on God quite childlike, his enthusiasm for 
the gospel most contagious. He says that he had in 
him the making of a very fierce, intractable haughty 
man. But the grace of Christ has certainly made him 
one of the most lovable fellows. Unlike most of the 
high officials, who are fat puffy faced gentlemen, whose 
high office relieves them of most duties except those 
concerned with calls, dinners, and so on, and who go 


152 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


about with a train of servants, Col. Chao is of erect 
military bearing, active and independent, not above 
shining his own shoes and carrying his own baggage. 
He wears English cut clothes entirely and wears them 
well though he has never been abroad. And wherever 
he goes he proclaims the gospel; on the trains giving 
away tracts, in private conversation giving his testi¬ 
mony, and wherever opportunity offers speaking in 
church or assembly for his Master. Withal he is so 
genuinely wholesome and manly. It can be imagined 
what the effect of his personality was upon the dele¬ 
gates. And the effect upon us from America was per¬ 
haps even more powerful, for to us he was the incar¬ 
nation of our vision for the future of China, when 
men of his ability shall in large numbers come under 
the influence of Christ. 

You remember my writing of Mr. Yuan, the son of 
one of the great officials under the Empress Dowager. 
He has returned to Kaifeng after nine months service 
as Mandarin for Chi Yuan country. He has reported 
to me that he has leisure now to go further in the 
study of Christianity, and that he is desirous of putting 
in a good portion of the time in that study. He has 
begun to attend all of the services of the church and 
the two week-night Bible classes. The other night I 
invited him to eat with me as he had been calling, and 
as we began the meal, I offered thanks in Chinese, 
and unexpectedly he followed me by also offering up 
a short prayer. 

Mr. Hu Ting Chang, who has recently come to 
Kaifeng to be religious work secretary for the Y. M. C. 


THE IMPACT OF CHRISTIANITY 153 


A., has preached for us several times lately. It has 
been an inspiration to hear him expound the Scripture, 
always in some fresh, unexpected and entirely Chinese 
way. Here are some words I heard him speak about 
Christmas. In the thirteen or fourteen years that he 
had been a Christian, he had each year at Christmas 
time tried to think of some new lesson from the birth 
of Christ. This year he thought of what Christ had 
given up to come to earth and save men. Christ gave 
up two things which men value most highly, and which 
they reluctantly if ever sacrifice for the sake of others, 
namely, social position and time. It is comparatively 
easy to give up money, but to really give up one’s social 
position (in the Chinese it is “the place where we stand 
with honor”) is extremely difficult. Jesus relinquished 
his place in Glory to be born in a poor family to save 
men. Time is another thing men hardly give up for 
others. Too busy, is usually the reply. But Jesus, 
whose time was of most value, took time to be born a 
little babe, and to slowly grow into manhood, pushing 
the saw, wielding the axe, waiting patiently until his 
thirtieth year, all because he wanted to save men. 
Pretty good preaching for a man whose background is 
all non-Christian, who has only been a Christian since 
his maturity, don’t you think? 

We found some of our schoolgirls crying in the 
back yard because they were afraid to go home by 
the front gate. We went out to see what was the 
matter and found that the heads of five robber chiefs 
in small crates were laid out in front of the inn, next 
door to us. There was a big crowd gathered to look 
at them. It seems that the military official who 


154 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


brought the heads to Kaifeng to prove his capture to 
the governor was staying in the inn and had left the 
heads out in front until time to make his call. 

Mr. Chu, a lawyer, presented me with several scrolls 
on his visit to me, the second time we had been to¬ 
gether in the course of a month or so. He told me 
that he had read the Christian literature which I had 
given him on his first call; and that he had discovered 
that the teachings of Jesus were in many places similar 
to the teachings of Confucius. But he had observed 
one difference and he wanted the explanation—“Why 
does Christianity seem to possess a power absent in all 
other religions? Is it because Christians believe sin¬ 
cerely in their doctrines, while the followers of other 
religions do not so heartily believe that which they 
profess?” I tried to show him that our faith was 
primarily in a Person, and not in a system of truth, 
and that the power came from this Person. When 
Mr. Chu originally visited me he said that he was un¬ 
certain about religious belief, and that it was his pur¬ 
pose to investigate thoroughly in the next two years 
the various religions and at the close of the investiga¬ 
tion decide for the religion he would follow. I quoted 
to him the parable of the Pearl of Great Price and 
said that there were truths in all systems but that we 
believed that when men realized the value of Christ and 
his truth, they would sell all their other pearls and 
buy the one of supreme worth. 

A CHINESE NICODEMUS OR HOBAB? 

Mr. Yuan Chung Mo, the official who was in Chi 
Yuan County, is at present our most interested in- 


THE IMPACT OF CHRISTIANITY 155 

quirer. He not only comes to all the services but 
often brings others with him. I invited him to come to 
my study three times a week to read the New Testa¬ 
ment with me, this in addition to his attendance on 
the other Bible classes and he agreed and has been 
most regular in meeting the appointment. This pri¬ 
vate study affords opportunity for prayer and it has 
become our custom to kneel together at the close of the 
hour and for both of us to pray. At first he was hesi¬ 
tant and stumbled in his words, but he has developed 
steadily, and sometime ago after I had prayed he 
thanked God that his faith was increasing step by 
step. 

He is what you would call a “lovely man,” in the 
best sense of those words. That is, his gentility and 
courtesy and culture and the absence of every mark of 
pride, make his presence in any company a pleasure. 
Last night we were in our group Bible class in the 
little guest room at the front of the chapel, the little 
company including a copper-smith, a pewter-smith, a 
paperer, a gate keeper, a poverty stricken Manchu and 
some others, and Mr. Yuan who once lived among 
princes kneeled with them all around the table as we 
closed the hour with prayer. The first prayer I heard 
him offer in that group was this—“O God, I thank Thee 
that Jesus Christ is not a foreigner, but the Savior of 
the whole world—Amen.” The feeling in that short 
prayer was as of great relief in this discovery, a dis¬ 
covery not made by many of the educated as yet, and 
therefore correspondingly a hindrance to their inquiry 
into Christianity. 

We are reading Luke together, chapter by chapter. 


,156 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


In explaining the temptation of Jesus, I remarked 
that the temptation to fall down and worship Satan was 
the suggestion to gain fair ends by foul means. Mr. 
Yuan offered to suggest an example of such temptation 
to see if he understood my meaning. He gave the ex¬ 
ample of a man who wanted to be a good official but 
who followed the usual practice of bribery to get into 
office. Remember that Mr. Yuan happens to be out 
of office at present, and official positions in China are 
rarely secured except by bribery, and you will see that 
his reading is touching home. 

But he is not the only learner in this study. He has 
already affected my preaching by certain suggestions 
from the Chinese standpoint. He was giving me his 
opinion on how to help the Chinese to understand the 
gospel. One thing he said was that it isn’t well to 
group all the Chinese gods together and denounce them 
as false and evil. Some of the gods worshiped were 
once famous and worthy heroes and though not prop¬ 
erly to be worshiped are yet worthy of respect and 
remembrance. For example, Kuan Di, the God of 
War, who was a hero of the Three Kingdoms period 
and laid down his life for his King. Another sugges¬ 
tion was that I should read more of the New Testament 
with the people and preach less. Following our West- 
tern habit we easily fall into the way of preaching from 
texts instead of taking whole passages to read and 
then explain. This habit, I suppose, comes about 
because the people in the churches at home are sup¬ 
posed to know the context and general background of 
the text without explanation. The courteous way in 
which Mr. Yuan made the suggestion was this: “Pas- 


THE IMPACT OF CHRISTIANITY 157 


tor, I notice that you expend a lot of energy in explain¬ 
ing the lesson; you must get pretty tired. Why don’t 
you let Jesus do some of the talking? Surely He is 
the Great Teacher and has something to say to us 
directly. You preach two sentences less each time, 
and let Jesus say two or three more.” It may be 
worth something to those who preach and teach in 
America, where after all, so much of our preaching is 
the expression of personal opinion, rather than exposi¬ 
tion of the New Testament. 

GATHERING SOME OF THE FIRST FRUITS 

I have just come from my first baptismal service. 
A group of nine men confessed their Lord in baptism, 
here at the Drum Tower Church. The first persons 
that I ever baptized were these nine Chinese men. 

Two of them were soldiers, one in the local cavalry 
and one a non-commissioned officer, a kind of body¬ 
guard of another officer. The latter’s conversion has 
moved us deeply. He has been a very wicked man on 
his own confession. He was an accomplice in the 
assassination of a candidate for governor of Honan in 
the second revolution, and has been with bands chas¬ 
ing bandits who used to cut out the hearts of the cap¬ 
tured and eat them to gain courage. He says there is 
no evil that he has not done. When he first came to 
the chapel he introduced himself to me as an indepen¬ 
dent priest, his name Li, the unworthy. He said he did 
not think he was worthy to come into our chapel, that 
probably God did not want him because he was so 
“cheap.” He said that he had knocked his head as 
many as fifty or sixty times a day before idols in 


158 HOME LETTERS FROM CHINA 


order to get peace for his conscience, but was still 
unhappy. I wish you could hear him pray now. His 
prayers are full of confession, thanksgiving, praise 
and intercession. Especially does he pour out his 
heart for his old father and mother in Shantung 
whom he has not seen in years. “O God, how can 
you receive me as a son when I have been so unfaith¬ 
ful to my own parents. Lord, pity them, for I have 
just come to know how great is their need. I did not 
even know before that they needed salvation.” When 
the service was over to-day, I asked him if he would be 
faithful to the end, and he replied that he was not one 
to go only half the road and then quit. 

Another is an old man, a teacher in our girls’ school 
for the past year or so. His mind has been deeply 
impressed by the way Christians care for girls, educat¬ 
ing them, lifting them up to equality with men. He 
returned to his old home some time ago for a visit and 
he said that he felt ashamed of himself before his wife 
for the way he had looked down on her in the past. 
The gospel gives a new conception of womanhood, one 
of the greatest contributions it can make out here. 

An unusual member of the group baptized was a 
Korean, the nephew of the Emperor of Korea, who has 
just died. He was once an imperial official, but has 
lived in exile since his country lost its independence. 
He has been a believer for many years, but had never 
joined the church. Although of the Emperor’s family 
(his mother was the Emperor’s own sister) he is a 
very democratic man, and is taking his place in the 
life of the church along with others who have had none 
of his advantages. 


THE IMPACT OF CHRISTIANITY 159 


And then there was Mr. Yuan, whose story I have 
been telling in several letters. It was the baptism of 
the son of a martyr whose death probably saved many 
a missionary in the Boxer days. 

There were three younger men with another older 
man not mentioned above. One of them was a student 
at Tsing Hua College in Peking. He is hoping to go 
to America soon to study. He speaks English easily. 
One is the son of a judge in Shensi. He is just beyond 
twenty and has already persuaded his sisters to believe 
and his old mother has taken down her idols. The 
other young man who is a bit over thirty has had the 
joy of bringing his wife with him, whose tuberculous 
condition has been wonderfully helped by prayer and 
the skill of the Christian physician. When she first 
came to the chapel she could hardly walk, she was so 
weak. The latest report is that her lungs are clearing 
up. 

Only four years in China, and already we are seeing 
signs of a great harvest. “Others have labored and 
we have entered into the labors.” 


THE END 





















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